The Startup That Could Bring Airline Ticket Shopping to Amazon

There's a widely-used data-sharing tool that airlines have been slow to adopt, even though it could improve their fare distribution to retailers like Amazon. So a London-based startup called Duffel launched a platform on Thursday to try to change that dynamic. Duffel's new platform strives to help about 20 airlines — including American Airlines, Lufthansa Group, British Airways, Emirates, Cathay Pacific, Transavia, United Airlines, and Air Canada — distribute their fares to third-parties like retailers, banks, and travel companies. While small, Duffel's effort hints at a possible broader wave of development in travel's digital economy. First, some context: Whether you're a hotel or cruise line looking to sell flights or a company like Amazon experimenting with selling flights, you might prefer to use application programming interfaces, or APIs. Software engineers have long relied on APIs in sectors such as advertising and financial technology, but traditional network airlines