Our new interview series examines the structural challenges facing aviation and the companies and individuals working to address them. From distribution deadlocks and budget overruns to stalled innovation, hear stories of those on the “front line,” confronting legacy systems, commercial inertia and the industry’s chronic reluctance to change.
Airlines talk a lot about modernization, yet many still wrestle with decades-old systems, manual workarounds and contracts that make simple changes exceptionally hard, and in most cases, expensive. With modest budgets and limited resources, smaller carriers are most impacted by this reliance on legacy technology, which wasn’t built to support lean operations or modern air travel.
Meir Hadassi Turner has spent a significant part of his career tackling this problem. In 2006, he founded AeroCRS to provide regional airlines with an affordable passenger-service platform that could be deployed quickly and updated easily, along with continuous product enhancements. After AeroCRS joined what is now GO7, Turner served as CEO, pushing for cleaner integrations and practical retail and distribution options that customers could actually use. Now an investor and adviser to travel-tech startups, he brings a builder’s lens to where airline IT should go next.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
You began in the quick-service restaurant and hospitality industries. How did that lead to airline technology?
I served as the Chief Technology Officer for Domino’s in Israel, where I implemented one of the country’s first voice-over-IP systems and online ordering platforms. I had a chance to show our systems to a young IT manager at an airline, and we kept in touch. I’ve always been fascinated by planes—I even took some theoretical pilot courses. When I left Domino’s to start my own IT company in 2004, I reached out and began working with him as an external consultant.
It was immediately apparent that airline tech needed to change. The back-end systems and processes were so cumbersome that airlines couldn’t even sell a pizza and Coke to passengers without an Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD). I saw an opportunity to simplify airline passenger service systems by adopting a software-as-a-service (SaaS) approach. That mindset led me to found AeroCRS, which initially focused on serving smaller airlines, primarily in the African market.
How did you decide to focus on this segment?
Today, there are around 1,100 active airlines worldwide; more than 900 of them are tier 4, with fewer than 3 million passengers annually. This market, though easier to penetrate and change, was also massively neglected. Airlines were stuck managing operations with expensive legacy systems or doing things manually.
By providing a modern, cost-effective, all-in-one passenger service system (PSS) that behaves like SaaS, we could tap a growing segment. We priced our solutions reasonably and included roadmap features, rather than charging custom development fees or exorbitant fees every time an airline requested a report or an alternative solution. Our technology enabled lean teams to sell, operate and update quickly, even for complex operations like multi-stop “flying bus” routes, which are very common across Africa.
When we first met with LIFT, the South African airline, for instance, the management team consisted of five people and had no physical office—they were operating out of a co-working space. Because everything was computerized through AeroCRS, they could still fly many passengers without the typical overhead of a small airline. I took a lot of pride in that.
You come across as a problem-solver who prefers to simplify complex issues. The airline ecosystem, however, has layers of complexity that have evolved over decades. How has your experience shaped your view of where systems fall short?
Many of today’s systems were built in the 1970s by developers who computerized paper processes. Back then, that was cutting-edge; it’s no longer the case. Computing power has undergone significant changes, and the time to market can be remarkably fast. However, airlines and their suppliers lack the underlying infrastructure and processes to accommodate this speed. Before we even look at specific technology, we need to fix these processes so that we’re not relying on antiquated data formats that are incompatible with actual order-based flows (where all purchase data lives in a single record).
Unless a few carriers take the bold steps necessary, we’ll continue to repackage old problems, and multiple PNRs will remain indefinitely.
At GO7, you talked about moving from a single, all-in-one stack to a more open hub. What was the idea, and what makes airlines hesitate?
The idea was a central hub that allows an airline to keep its PSS if it wants, but chooses other vendors around it for selling and distribution, like a marketplace model. Think about the hosting world: it used to be expensive and complicated with bespoke hardware; now you can spin up a global environment in minutes with Amazon Web Services (AWS) or other cloud providers. I think travel should be similar, like how a business enables HubSpot or Zendesk to support operations. Integrations should be clean, quick and as close to seamless as possible.
Some airlines are reluctant to abandon their legacy systems. In a low-margin business, especially one that’s highly regulated, managers tend to choose what feels safe, and consultants often recommend the path they are most familiar with. Regulations are reasonable when they concern safety and border controls, but less so when they block communication between commercial systems. New airlines can move faster, but established carriers have habits and contracts that are slow to change. And let’s not forget about the shift in mindset, which is also needed. A hub still helps because an airline can replace parts of its system over time, rather than doing everything at once, which isn’t practical.
If replacing everything isn’t realistic, where should an airline start, and when do pricing, personalization and AI make sense?
Go step by step. First, refine the basic retailing framework so customers can purchase what they need and make common changes without needing to contact an agent. Next, improve processes that support the day of travel, such as check-in, seat allocation, and baggage handling, so that it is easy to deliver at the airport. After that, clean up the money flows so accounting and reporting match what customers bought. Inside each step, modernize one system at a time and ensure that new services connect within days, not months or even longer.
When the basics are in place, add bundles and smarter pricing. After that, personalization and testing. Use AI on top of clean processes and data, but not before. Obviously, if the first step is broken, the advanced features won’t deliver.
What do many of the travel-tech startups you advise miss, and what should they focus on instead?
Many companies are developing patches for existing processes and systems. Few try to sell or create something brand-new because the path is so long and manual. When I meet a founder focused on ‘patching,’ I understand that is what they need to do now, but I ask how they plan to change the underlying processes to support more flexible and innovative outputs later.
Most startups today are trying to solve the retail layer and pricing because changing distribution is inherently complex and slow. That’s why we still don’t see enough effort to make the PSS act like a stock manager with an order layer on top. If we had that, airlines would have more options and require less custom work.
What should the industry abandon, and what should replace it?
We should abandon the ticket as the center of the system. Airlines don’t sell paper; they sell a digital experience. Passengers are travelers. They want flexibility, personalization, and more services, so the system should support these needs. The passenger name record isn’t enough. We should move toward a world where the order is the core element of the transaction, allowing trips to be more personal and flexible.
Think of it like a persistent shopping cart where customers can go back into their order and add or subtract goods and services without having to call a customer service agent. Need to rebook your flight? Do it through the online order. Decided you don’t need to check luggage after all? Cancel it through the airline’s app. Today’s systems lack the flexibility to enable this, resulting in a poor passenger experience.
Do you think this shift will happen soon?
Change is slow in this industry, but pressure is rising. Airlines once led significant technological shifts in communications and operations. They’re behind now, especially with AI, but I believe the industry can catch up. I don’t know if it will lead again in every area, but progress should be faster than in recent years if we fix the basics I’ve described and keep integrations open and straightforward.
Modernization isn’t just another layer on top of legacy technology; it’s about redesigning the underlying processes to match how people travel today. Meir’s view: Start with basic retail, the parts customers feel, and promote operational flexibility through an open hub, treating the order as the source of truth. That’s how airlines finally escape the ‘patch cycle.’
To connect with Meir Hadassi Turner or learn more about his work with AeroCRS, you can find him on LinkedIn or visit go7.io/products/aerocrs.