Airlines have spent the better part of a decade building NDC capability. The infrastructure is there. What’s changing now is the layer above it – how distribution partners connect to it, how AI agents query it, and how airlines control what gets surfaced and to whom. MCP is that layer, and it changes the integration model without touching what airlines have already built.
In the latest installment of the TPConnects Interview Series, Praveen Kumar, CTO and Co-Founder of TPConnects, explains how Astra’s MCP layer works in practice: what it means to build a standardized server on top of a fragmented NDC landscape, how pricing logic, scheduling, and rules orchestration are handled in a modular architecture, and what changes for airlines when switching distribution vendors means changing an endpoint rather than rebuilding an integration.
What the interview covers
The NDC version problem, explained
From NDC 15.2 to NDC 25.2: what schema fragmentation costs airlines in IT overhead, version maintenance cycles, and time to market. Praveen breaks down why version sprawl is the hidden tax on every airline running a modern distribution stack, and why the problem compounds as carrier counts grow.
How MCP sits above the NDC layer
MCP is not a replacement for NDC. It’s a complement to it. Praveen walks through how TPConnects built a standardized MCP server on top of the fragmented NDC layer, what that does to integration complexity for airlines, and how Astra surfaces consistent behavior across schema versions without requiring airlines to deprecate what’s already in production.
Airline architecture in an AI-native world
How Astra’s modular MCP design handles pricing logic, scheduling, and rules orchestration, and why that architecture matters for airlines thinking beyond the next integration cycle. Praveen explains what it means to build distribution infrastructure that an AI agent can query directly, and where that takes retailing capability over the next two to three years.
From vendor lock-in to plug-and-play
What changes when switching vendors means changing an endpoint rather than rebuilding an integration. Praveen covers how MCP’s common authentication protocol reduces switching costs, and what that means for airlines evaluating distribution partners in a market where the underlying protocol is no longer proprietary.
“Communicating is going to be easier in all the different layers of the platform, and MCP will empower you to expand faster with an easier distribution. And it is going to change the world for sure.” – Praveen Kumar, CTO & Co-Founder, TPConnects
The interview is available on demand. If you’re an airline IT director, head of distribution, or part of a commercial team working through NDC adoption or evaluating where AI fits into your long-term retailing strategy, this is the conversation to watch.
