Add Passengers and Traveler Details

The name entry

Passengers are added with the - prefix, one command per passenger, in -SURNAME/GIVEN TITLE form:

-DOE/JANE MS       # Adult
-SMITH/JOHN MR     # Adult
-DOE/TIMMY MSTR    # Child — MSTR sets the child type

Titles are MR, MS, MRS, MISS, MSTR. The order you add passengers is the order they're numbered — P1, P2, P3… — and those numbers are how every other command on this page addresses them.

One habit to adjust: in NDC the passenger record is not decoration on a PNR — it's input to the offer. The airline prices per passenger type and validates the data you send at order creation, so a booking with thin passenger data doesn't degrade gracefully; it gets rejected. Enter the details up front.

Children and infants

A MSTR title books a child. For everything else, set the passenger type explicitly with *<PTC>:

@P1*CHD            # Passenger 1 is a child (2–11)
@P2*INF            # Passenger 2 is a lap infant (under 2, no seat)
@P2*INS            # Passenger 2 is an infant WITH its own seat
@P3*SRC            # Passenger 3 requests a senior fare
@P1*ADT            # Back to adult

The INF/INS distinction matters: INF is a lap infant — no seat, priced (or free) against an accompanying adult — while INS occupies a seat and is priced as such. They are different products to the airline, not a checkbox.

Because passenger type is priced into the offer, changing a PTC clears your priced offers — reprice with WP afterward. Special types such as SRC, YTH, STU, and INS stay intact when you add a compatible date of birth; the DOB no longer silently turns them into an adult or lap infant fare. Give every child and infant a date of birth (below); carriers validate age against the PTC and reject mismatches at booking.

Attribute targeting: last passenger vs @P<n>/

Every @ attribute comes in two forms. Bare, it applies to the last passenger added; with a @P<n>/ prefix, it applies to that specific passenger:

@DOB01JAN1980              # Date of birth — last passenger
@P2/DOB15MAR1985           # Date of birth — passenger 2
@F                         # Gender F — last passenger
@P1/M                      # Gender M — passenger 1
@PAXTEL+15551234567        # Contact phone
@P1/PAXTEL1-555-123-4567   # Hyphens and an optional leading + are accepted
@PAXEMAIL/[email protected] # Contact email
@P1/PAXEMAIL/[email protected]  # Email for passenger 1

The bare form is convenient in the natural rhythm — add a passenger, immediately key their DOB, gender, contacts, then add the next passenger. On a multi-passenger booking you're editing later, use @P<n>/ and leave nothing to inference. Phone numbers may include hyphens and may begin with +; keep the number attached to PAXTEL with no intervening space.

Travel documents

Three document types: DOCPP (passport), DOCID (national ID card), DOCVI (visa). Same targeting rule as every other attribute:

@P1/DOCPP/USA/123456789             # Passport: issuing country / number
@DOCPP/USA/123456789/31DEC2035/US   # With expiry + nationality (last passenger)
@P1/DOCID/USA/X123456               # National ID card
@P1/DOCVI/GR/V12345/31DEC2030/US/GR/01JAN2025  # Visa: issuer/number/expiry/nationality/host country/issue date

Expiry dates are DDMMMYYYY (a two-digit year is accepted and read as future — 31DEC35 is 2035). A malformed expiry is rejected outright, not silently dropped, so a typo can't produce a document with no expiry on the wire.

Which documents are mandatory — and when — is a carrier decision. Domestic itineraries often book on name and DOB alone; international itineraries commonly require a complete APIS record (passport or ID for every passenger, sometimes addresses) before issuance, and some carriers demand it at order creation. NDCTerm validates what it can locally and rejects incomplete data before contacting the carrier, but the carrier's own requirements are the ceiling — check the airline's page under Airlines when a booking will be ticketed against an international itinerary.

Known traveler and redress numbers

@P1/KTN/123456789          # Known traveler number (TSA PreCheck)
@P1/KTN/US/123456789       # With issuing country
@P1/REDRESS/12345678       # Redress number
@P1/REDRESS/US/12345678    # With country

Both follow the last-passenger rule when unprefixed, but these are exactly the attributes you don't want landing on the wrong traveler — prefer the explicit @P<n>/ form.

Deleting and correcting

Before booking, passengers are deleted with the X prefix:

XP1                # Delete passenger 1
XPA                # Delete ALL passengers

Like a PTC change, deleting a passenger invalidates the priced offers — run WP again before booking.

After booking, you don't delete and re-add — you run the carrier's name-correction servicing on the loaded order:

NAME/P1/SMITH/JOHN      # Correct passenger 1's name on the booked order
NAME/P1/SMITH/JOHN/MR   # With title

Carriers restrict how large a correction they accept — a fixed typo usually passes, a different person never does — and the carrier's rejection is shown verbatim when it refuses.

With passengers complete, the next step is pricing: Price Offers and Compare Fare Brands.