The aviation industry has no shortage of modernization initiatives. What it lacks is agreement on what must be surrendered for modernization to be real. In this two-part series, aviation and travel technology expert, Timothy O’Neil-Dunne discusses why aviation’s biggest barriers to change are structural and cultural, not technical and why it’s stuck between ambition and reality.
Airline modernization is often framed as a technical challenge requiring new architectures, distribution models and frameworks. Yet, as Timothy O'Neil-Dunne argues, the more persistent obstacle is not technology but willingness.
In this two-part conversation with THINKINK, Timothy unpacks why meaningful change has proven so elusive. Part one examines how leadership legacies, organizational habits and cultural reluctance have shaped today’s fragmented travel experience. Part two looks ahead, considering what may finally force the industry to move and what a more traveler-centered future could require.
Timothy’s perspective is informed by his decades-long experience in the travel and aviation sectors. Currently a principal at T2Impact, a consulting and analyst firm focused on airline distribution, retailing and modernization, he also founded Air Black Box, a technology provider aimed at simplifying airline connectivity and interlining challenges, earlier in his career.
How did you get your start in the airline and travel sector?
My fascination with aviation began very early. I tried all the conventional routes into the industry. I tried to become a pilot; I applied to British Airways, the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. I even tried to become a flight attendant and failed at that as well.
What ultimately held my attention, however, was not the aircraft themselves, but people. I became fascinated by how hundreds of individuals, each with different motivations and constraints, somehow arrive at the mouth of a jetway at roughly the same time. The invisible systems and incentives that make that coordination possible interested me far more than the mechanics of flight.
Over time, that curiosity extended into travel more broadly. Why do people tolerate so much friction to get where they are going? And why does an industry built entirely around human movement spend so little time thinking about the psychology of the people moving through it?
You have spent years thinking about the psychology of travel. What has changed in the last decade or so?
The most significant change is that the joy of the journey has largely disappeared. Travel used to be something people looked forward to. Today, for many, it is simply an obstacle standing between them and the purpose of their trip.
Younger generations are goal-oriented. They want to get where they are going with as little friction as possible. The mechanics of travel hold little appeal. What has changed is not a lack of desire to travel, but a lack of patience for unnecessary complexity.
And yet, experience tells them to anticipate friction. They brace themselves for rules, restrictions and conditions they feel powerless to influence. The process has become something to manage defensively rather than enjoy.
What is striking is how rarely this lived reality appears in discussions about transformation. The industry talks about architecture and retailing models, but rarely about how its decisions shape anxiety, vigilance and distrust. That omission helps explain why so many modernization initiatives fail to resonate.
Airline modernization is often framed as a technical challenge. Why do you see it differently?
Airlines frequently hide behind safety as a reason not to change. Safety matters, of course, but it also becomes a convenient way to shut down discussion. Processes designed for efficiency or control are defended as safety requirements, even when that is not really what is driving them. Saying something cannot change because of safety is far easier than admitting that changing it would require rethinking how work is organized and who holds authority.
That is why I see this as a willingness issue. It is not that the industry cannot do many of the things it talks about. It is that doing them would require giving up a degree of control, simplifying long-standing processes and cooperating in ways airlines have historically been reluctant to embrace.
Looking across your career, which obstacles to modernization remain firmly in place?
The industry is still shaped by people who built systems and organizations for a very different era, and who have had little incentive to change them. Aviation has become one of the most siloed industries in the world. Everyone talks about collaboration, but in practice, the sector is remarkably uncooperative. Airlines, GDSs, technology providers, and other stakeholders all operate within the same ecosystem, yet they behave as if they were competing realities rather than interdependent ones.
Interlining is a good example of this. The technology to make it more flexible has existed for years, but it requires cooperation and shared responsibility. That is where things break down. Airlines would rather preserve control than simplify the experience, even when simplification would clearly benefit the traveler.
You mention Ryanair when discussing control, honesty and the gap between how airlines talk about travel and what they deliver. Why does Ryanair stand out to you in that context?
What Ryanair provides is reliable transportation. It stands out because it is one of the few airlines that is clear about that. It separates the process of travel from the reason for travel, and it does not try to dress that up as something else.
Other airlines often deliver something very similar in practical terms, but wrap it in layers of narrative about joy, experience and aspiration. Ryanair does not do that. It makes the trade-offs explicit. That clarity exposes a broader issue in the industry, where complexity and storytelling are sometimes used to avoid being honest about what is being offered.
By placing greater emphasis on the purpose of travel rather than the process, you have challenged the concept of loyalty and whether it still exists. Why?
Because, for the most part, it does not. Passenger loyalty is largely an illusion. What often gets described as loyalty is really a lack of choice. In many markets, travelers fly a particular airline because there is no viable alternative. They are not loyal. They are constrained. If another option appears, they will take it. Gen Z makes this even clearer. They have said quite openly that they do not really care which airline they fly on. They care about getting from A to B with the least amount of friction.
When airlines build modernization strategies around loyalty as if it were something they still control, they are starting from the wrong place. Loyalty today is structural, not emotional, and pretending otherwise does not change how people actually travel.
If these structural obstacles persist, what does that mean for modernization efforts overall?
The industry will continue to invest in modernization, but much of that investment will be spent reinforcing what already exists rather than questioning it. This is evident in how innovation is absorbed. Start-ups arrive with promising ideas, but the environment they enter is resistant to real change. Sales cycles are long, integration is complex, and procurement is risk-averse. To survive, many of these companies are forced to scale back their ambition until their ideas can be slotted into existing frameworks.
There is also a tendency to overestimate the progress being made. So yes, there is movement, but it is slow and often circular. Without a willingness to confront the structural and cultural constraints that shape the industry, modernization risks becoming an exercise in maintaining the status quo with better language and newer technology.
The themes that surfaced in this part of the discussion reveal an industry constrained less by what it cannot do than by what it has chosen not to do. The technical foundations for progress are largely in place. What remains unresolved is whether airlines are prepared to confront the cultural habits, power dynamics and structural assumptions that have shaped the travel experience for decades.
Our next discussion moves from diagnosis to direction, exploring what may finally force the industry’s hand and what happens when willingness is no longer optional and what may finally force the industry's hand.
To connect with Timothy O’Neil-Dunne or learn more about his work, you can find him on LinkedIn.