ATPCO fare filing: fares, rules and footnotes in practice
ATPCO filing connects the fares your revenue team dreams up with the itineraries travellers actually book. This walkthrough distils the original guide into a cleaner, screen-friendly read so you can move from idea to published fare confidently.
Why the filing experience matters
Every fare filing feeds pricing engines, distribution partners, and settlement systems. When details are unclear, a single mismatch can snowball into ticketing queues, debit memos, or lost share. Treat the process like a publication workflow: define the product, review the governance, and ship only when every field has a trusted owner.
Map the components before you file
ATPCO filings revolve around three connected building blocks. Treat them as a living data model instead of siloed spreadsheets.
Fares
Define the market, cabin, seasonality, and base amounts. Keep a change log so analysts can compare year-over-year performance.
Rules
Encode conditions, travel dates, and combinability logic. Mirror customer language and highlight exceptions in plain English summaries.
Footnotes
Attach clarifications and references. Use them to explain why a restriction exists so commercial teams can defend the policy.
A dependable filing workflow
- Capture requirements. Gather fare intents, target POS, and competitor benchmarks in a structured intake form.
- Draft the fares. Build test fares in your pricing system, using programmatic validations to catch typos and expired references.
- Align rules and footnotes. Pair each fare with explicit rules and match footnotes to their governing categories.
- Run QA and peer review. Invite a second analyst to cross-check booking code logic, surcharges, and category 25 text.
- Publish and monitor. Submit to ATPCO, confirm downstream ingestion, and schedule a fare health review within 48 hours.
QA checklist before submission
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Are fares sequenced with current private indicators? | Prevents outdated private fares from surfacing in NDC or GDS searches. |
| Do rules reference active footnotes? | Avoids broken links that confuse travel agents and call-centre staff. |
| Is the combinability text conflict-free? | Ensures interline partners can ticket complex itineraries without manual waivers. |
| Have you tested sale and travel dates in the future? | Catches default system dates that might otherwise expire overnight. |
Maintain visibility after launch
Publishing is only half the story. Build dashboards or scheduled reports that compare planned versus distributed content. ATPCO's Architect, Express Contracts, and Routehappy content offer structured feeds that your BI tools can consume.
- Tag filings with campaign identifiers so marketing teams can attribute revenue quickly.
- Bundle release notes into a changelog shared with revenue management, sales, and customer support.
- Document retired fares and rules so you can recycle proven language during future promotions.
Next steps for pricing leaders
Carve out one hour this week to audit an existing fare family. Compare the rules in ATPCO to your product promise on the website and in agency briefs. Tight alignment keeps travellers confident and protects margin.
When you are ready to level up your team's analytics, explore our guides on quantitative reasoning and flashcard design—the same structured thinking lifts airline pricing too.