Glossary of Terms | Product Catalog

The definitions that follow may help bridge the gap between familiar ATPCO terminology and the words and phrases being introduced with Product Catalog.

Concept	Definition in Context of Product Catalog
Add / Intake	Intake refers to the process by which data is loaded into Product Catalog. As part of the onboarding process, airlines may optionally authorize ATPCO to populate the Product Catalog with data from one or more ATPCO source systems (Fares, Rules, Optional Services, Branded Fares, Amenities). This is not required to create an airline’s product catalog data but provides seed data to facilitate adoption. Airlines and their authorized delegates can also add and discontinue data by means of an online system or API connection.
Associate	The process of linking a product to a bundle. A single product can be associated with one or more bundles, but products can also be “standalone,” that is, independent of bundles.
Blank spaces and empty strings	Blank spaces and empty strings are not valid values. In an API request, an element with a blank space or empty string removes any existing value from the element.
Cancel	See Discontinue
Create	The process by which a product or bundle is added to Product Catalog.
Delete	See Discontinue
Disassociate	The process by which the relationship between product and a bundle is severed. The product and the bundle remain in Product Catalog, but they are no longer linked.
Discontinue	Discontinuing a product or bundle removes it from Product Catalog. The removal is effective on the date the request is processed. Discontinued products and bundles remain in the ATPCO system for a period of seven days and then are purged.
Element	A characteristic of a product or bundle that can have a measurement or value. For example, seat width is an element; “wide” and “standard” are values. In Product Catalog, only those elements with values are displayed for a product or bundle. For example, a seat product with standard legroom but no width, pitch, or angle values would appear in Product Catalog with the legroom element only.
Equipment ID source	Equipment in Product Catalog has an indicator that identifies the reference source of the data as either: Bilaterally defined by the Catalog owner and Catalog receiver/user Equipment ID source = X or Defined in ATPCO Appendix F (Equipment codes) Equipment ID source = A Product Catalog supports both data sources but can validate only those that have equipment ID source A.
Location source	Locations in Product Catalog has an indicator that identifies the reference source of the data as either: Identifies the source for the location information found in the location fields of a Transport record. Bilaterally defined by the Catalog owner and Catalog receiver/user Location source = X or Defined by the industry (ATPCO geographic codes) Location source = I Product Catalog supports both data sources but can validate only those that have location source I.
Passenger type source	Passenger types in Product Catalog have an indicator that identifies the reference source of the data as either: Bilaterally defined by the Catalog owner and Catalog receiver/user Passenger type source = X or Defined in ATPCO Appendix A (Passenger Type Codes) Location source = A Product Catalog supports both data sources but can validate only those that have passenger type A.
Remove	See Discontinue
RESTful practices relaxed	Product Catalog APIs are grounded in RESTful principles, but certain best practices are intentionally relaxed to accommodate real-world needs. PATCH is used for partial updates and when data retrieval or deletion requires complex or large payloads, such as filters and bulk operations. Using PATCH for these purposes improves efficiency and avoids the overwriting of unchanged data. POST is sometimes used instead of GET or DELETE. Although using POST in this manner diverges from strict REST conventions, it provides practical benefits such as avoiding URL length limitations and securely transmitting sensitive criteria in the request body.
Retrieve	The process by which a copy of a product or bundle is fetched from Product Catalog.
Subscriber	A subscriber is any company that buys automated data from ATPCO. In the context of Product Catalog, this includes the Catalog owner itself, as well as supplier partners, sellers/aggregators, retailers, and vendors.
Update	The process by which a product or bundle is changed.