NDC Product Lead

Job Summary

The NDC Product Lead will play a critical role in the successful development, deployment, and management of the New Distribution Capability (NDC) program. This individual will be responsible for aligning the NDC product with business goals, collaborating with internal and external stakeholders, and ensuring the product meets the needs of the airline's distribution strategy. The NDC Product Lead will work closely with the Director, Sales Planning & Distribution, Sales Account Management and Distribution Strategy teams, and key technology partners to drive the success of NDC initiatives across indirect sales channels.

Duties & Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Collaboration

• Business Case & Strategy: Assist in defining and presenting business cases for NDC initiatives, ensuring alignment with revenue targets and business objectives.
• Collaborative Strategy Development: Work closely with the Sales and Distribution team to develop and refine the overall distribution strategy for indirect channels, including NDC adoption.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Act as the key liaison between business units and the project team, communicating the scope, objectives, and impacts of NDC initiatives to stakeholders across the organization.
• Partner Onboarding Strategy: Collaborate with business stakeholders to define and implement an efficient partner onboarding strategy, ensuring smooth integration and adoption of NDC technology and processes.

Product Ownership & Delivery

• NDC Product Ownership: Own the end-to-end product lifecycle of the Navitaire NDC API, ensuring its alignment with business needs, technical requirements, and customer expectations.
• Roadmap & Backlog Management: Define, prioritize, and manage the product roadmap and backlog, ensuring timely delivery of features and functionalities that meet business needs and customer demands.
• Product Development Oversight: Lead the development and delivery of NDC features, ensuring product quality and successful UAT (User Acceptance Testing) sign-offs.
• Vendor Management: Own and manage relationships with third-party vendors, ensuring scope alignment and timely delivery of the NDC API features.
• Quality Assurance: Oversee product quality during the vendor delivery process and ongoing in-production phases, ensuring that features meet defined specifications and user requirements.

Implementation & Change Management

• Business Readiness: Ensure business readiness for the NDC product by coordinating with impacted stakeholders, facilitating training, and providing support for operational changes.
• Change Management Leadership: Lead the change management efforts to ensure smooth adoption and integration of NDC technology within the organization, including driving internal communications and aligning teams with the new processes and tools.
• Ongoing Product Maintenance & BAU: Support the implementation and long-term maintenance of the NDC product, ensuring ongoing Business-As-Usual (BAU) operations and optimization.

Performance & KPIs

• KPI Definition & Measurement: Define, measure, and report on KPIs related to NDC product performance, including adoption rates, commercial outcomes, and customer satisfaction metrics at both the product and portfolio levels.
• Commercial & Customer Focus: Drive efforts to capture opportunities for growth and enhance customer and commercial outcomes in the digital channel by optimizing product features and ensuring they align with market demands.

• Problem-Solving: Ability to identify opportunities and challenges and implement solutions that balance business needs with technical capabilities.
• Customer-Centric: Always thinking about the customer experience and how to enhance the value delivered through NDC and digital distribution channels.
• Collaboration: Comfortable working with cross-functional teams, including Sales, IT, Revenue Management, and External Partners, to drive alignment and achieve results.
• Innovation and Adaptability: Ability to anticipate what needs may arise in the future and any interim steps required to prepare for them, with a can-do attitude to make it happen in the face of changing internal and external constraints.
• Safety: Actively participates in Porter's Safety Management System (SMS) including reporting hazards and incidents encountered in daily operations; understand, comply with and promote the Company Safety Policy.

Behavioural Competencies

• Concern for Safety: Identifying hazardous or potentially hazardous situations and taking appropriate action to maintain a safe environment for self and others.
• Teamwork: Working collaboratively with others to achieve organizational goals.
• Passenger/Customer Service: Providing service excellence to internal and/or external customers (passengers).
• Initiative: Dealing with situations and issues proactively and persistently, seizing opportunities that arise.
• Results Focus: Focusing efforts on achieving high quality results consistent with the organization's standards.
• Fostering Communication: Listening and communicating openly, honestly, and respectfully with different audiences, promoting dialogue and building consensus.

Qualifications

• Experience: Minimum of 5-7 years of experience in product management, airline distribution, or a related field, with a focus on NDC, digital channels, or similar technological initiatives.
• Industry Knowledge: Strong understanding of airline distribution models, including GDS, PSS, and NDC APIs. Familiarity with Navitaire systems is a plus.
• Leadership: Proven track record of managing cross-functional teams and driving complex projects from concept to delivery, including change management and stakeholder management.
• Technical Understanding: Experience in managing technical products, APIs, and working closely with IT teams to deliver solutions. Ability to engage with both technical and business stakeholders effectively.
• Communication: Exceptional communication skills with the ability to influence and align stakeholders, both internal and external. Proven ability to present complex technical concepts in an easily digestible manner
• Project Management: Strong project management skills with a demonstrated ability to handle multiple priorities and work under tight deadlines. Agile methodology experience is preferred.
• Analytical Skills: Strong analytical abilities to define KPIs, measure success, and translate data into actionable insights.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Business, Technology, or a related field. Advanced certifications or education in Product Management, Airline Distribution, or Digital Transformation are a plus.
• Travel: Ability to travel as required for meetings with partners and vendors

Location

Toronto Downtown Office (250 Yonge Street) #LI-Hybrid

Company Description

Since 2006, Porter Airlines has been elevating the experience of economy air travel for every passenger, providing genuine hospitality with style, care and charm. Porter's fleet of Embraer E195-E2 and De Havilland Dash 8-400 aircraft serves a North American network from Eastern Canada. Headquartered in Toronto, Porter is an Official 4 Star Airline in the World Airline Star Rating. Visit www.flyporter.com or follow @porterairlines on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.