Feb 03, 2026 / By Vanessa Horwell
10 min read
Airline modernization has spent years circling the same diagnosis: legacy systems, entrenched processes and cultures built to protect what exists rather than enable what comes next. In an earlier conversation with aviation and travel technology expert, Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, that tension was laid bare. The industry knows what needs to change yet repeatedly stops short of acting.
Below, our conversation moves beyond diagnosis. If airlines remain constrained by their own structures and assumptions, what forces change anyway, and who controls what emerges on the other side? As consumer expectations rise and new decision-making tools take shape outside airline channels, the consequences of inaction are becoming harder to ignore. What pressures will force change anyway, and what does that future look like for airline retailing, servicing and distribution?
Is modern retailing in aviation a fallacy?
What will it take to get airlines from today’s reality to their stated vision for modern retailing?
When airlines talk about retailing, they tend to focus on the surface. They look at the front page of companies like Amazon and see choice. What they miss is everything that happens after that moment: How options are curated, how payment and fulfillment work together and how little effort is required from the customer once intent is expressed.
In aviation, the process works in the opposite direction. Complexity is exposed rather than absorbed. Unbundling once allowed airlines to price components more flexibly, but rebundling those components into today’s fare families, rules and exceptions has created confusion rather than clarity. Instead of simplifying the decision, the system requires travelers to interpret internal airline logic to complete a booking. And layered on top of that complexity are regulatory obligations, which almost everyone forgets about.
That is why the idea of retailing often rings hollow in aviation. Booking a trip still requires far too much conscious effort. The traveler must actively assemble, verify and manage each step rather than express where they want to go and when. Moving from that explicit, effort-heavy process to an implicit one, where intent drives the outcome, is what real retailing looks like.
Consumers, not airlines, will usher in modern retailing
If that shift toward implicit travel does happen, who drives it, and what does it break?
Consumers, not airlines, will drive it. Airlines have had decades to simplify travel and have not done it. The moment consumers have a tool that lets them express intent without navigating airline rules, the balance shifts.
In other retail environments, you do not have to tell the system how to do its job. You indicate what you want, and the rest happens in the background. I believe similar tools will emerge in travel, powered by AI, that allow someone to say, “That is what I want,” without needing to understand fares, bundles or airline processes.
That capability does not yet exist at scale in travel, but consumers are clearly ready for it. They are tired of doing the work. Once a tool can reliably assemble outcomes without exposing airline complexity, it will gain traction quickly. The issue is not whether airlines like this future, but whether they are prepared for the moment when consumers stop playing by the rules the industry designed for itself.
The missing element in OOSD
As airlines push toward OOSD as the foundation for modern retailing, how does that fit with your view of implicit travel, and what do you think is missing?
The problem with offer-order-settle-deliver is that it is incomplete. It’s missing a critical “S”: service. Thus, it should be offer-order-service-settle-deliver. Without service, offer and order simply do not work in the real world of travel.
Servicing is where complexity lives. It’s what happens when plans change, flights are disrupted, exceptions arise or customers need something to be fixed rather than being sold to. One can streamline the point of sale all they like, but if the system cannot handle what follows, the entire model breaks down. The issue is not that airlines cannot design for service. It’s that they choose not to.
Implicit travel, therefore, only works if orders can be easily modified, disrupted, refunded or re-accommodated without pushing complexity back onto the traveler. That requires clear ownership, consistent rules and systems designed to handle change, not just completion. Right now, most airline environments are still anchored in ticket-era assumptions about service.
The risk is that airlines build a “cleaner” selling model on top of service structures that cannot support it. When that happens, OOSD does not simplify or make travel any easier. What is does is exposes the gaps between what airlines promise at the point of sale and what their systems can deliver as a journey unravels. Until airlines are willing to address the Service component, travelers won’t fully realize the benefits of OOSD anytime soon.
A system where big ideas flounder
What role do start-ups realistically play in changing this?
The industry looks to start-ups for transformation, but aviation is a problematic environment for real change. Sales cycles are long; integration is complex and procurement rewards caution. Many companies enter with big ideas and quickly discover how constrained the system is. They are doing interesting work, but very few can reshape the system. Transformation at scale still depends on incumbents being willing to let go of long-held assumptions. That remains the limiting factor.
Looking toward the future
Over the next decade, where do you expect change to show up—and what does that mean for airline distribution and control?
Change in aviation is inherently slow, shaped by long aircraft lifecycles, cautious regulation and infrastructure that evolves over decades. That is not where disruption will come from. What will change is where travel decisions are made. As consumer-facing tools improve, demand will increasingly be shaped outside airline-controlled distribution channels.
The industry has spent years assuming that exposing more choices is progress. In reality, the future points toward fewer visible options, not more. Systems will narrow in scope to avoid overwhelming travelers with complexity. Airlines can still participate in that future, but only if their systems can support clarity and serviceability once the sale is made.
If they can’t, others will step in. Consumer platforms will assemble outcomes and treat airlines as inputs rather than destinations. At that point, distribution is no longer about reach. It is about relevance. And that is a shift many airlines are not yet prepared for.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The forces shaping the future of airline retailing and distribution are already in motion. The question is not whether change will happen, but who will define it. As consumer tools evolve and intolerance for any friction grows, the cost of inaction grows too. For airlines, modernization is a reckoning with assumptions that have guided the industry for decades.
You can follow our previous discussion about how leadership legacies, organizational habits and cultural reluctance have shaped today’s fragmented travel experience in When Modernization Meets Resistance: Inside Aviation's Willingness Gap.
You can also connect with Timothy O’Neil-Dunne or learn more about his experience and work on LinkedIn.
