ARC — Airlines Reporting Corporation

What ARC Does

ARC operates the financial settlement pipeline that sits between US travel agencies and the airlines they sell tickets for. When an ARC-accredited agency issues a ticket, EMD, or refund, the transaction flows through ARC's reporting system, which consolidates the agency's sales into a single periodic report and settles the funds with each airline involved — rather than the agency wiring money to every carrier separately. ARC also runs the accreditation program that determines which agencies are permitted to sell airline tickets on behalf of ARC's member carriers, screening them for financial stability and operational compliance.

History

ARC was established on September 17, 1984, and began operations on January 1, 1985, succeeding the ticketing and settlement functions previously handled by the Air Traffic Conference of America (ATC). It is privately held and owned by a group of major US and international airlines, and is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area.

Scale

In 2025, ARC settled transactions for over 292 million passenger trips and processed more than $100 billion in US travel agency air ticket sales, working with roughly 10,000 accredited travel agency locations and hundreds of participating airlines worldwide.

ARC vs. BSP

ARC and IATA's Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) perform the same core function — consolidated ticket settlement between airlines and agencies — but for different jurisdictions. BSP is IATA's system, used in most countries outside the United States; ARC is the US-specific equivalent, operated independently of IATA even though many airlines and travel management companies participate in both. A travel agency operating internationally may need both ARC accreditation (to issue on US ticket stock) and IATA/BSP accreditation (for sales elsewhere), and each system has its own reporting cycles, document types, and settlement rules.

Beyond Settlement

ARC has expanded beyond pure settlement into data and technology services, including aggregated air-travel transaction data products used for market research, and fraud- and risk-detection tools used by both airlines and agencies.