Many paths to modern airline retailing: choice at their core

There’s certainly no shortage of change in the aviation industry these days, and it presents real opportunities to rethink how technology supports airlines, travel sellers and other industry stakeholders. At Amadeus, our aim is to help airlines shape their transformation through open, modular technology that works in an ecosystem made up of the many different technology systems and businesses that power connected travel. We like to believe that we all share the same goal: to make travel simpler, more relevant, and more efficient, from booking to returning home and starting to think about your next trip.

To best enable the transformation, we’re changing the way we work.

At a foundational level, where we once ran our full-service (FSC) and low-cost (LCC) businesses separately, we’ve brought the teams together and unified our airline products into a single portfolio. This makes it easier to deliver tailored solutions for each airline’s model, priorities and needs.

As a starting point for tailoring solutions, we have chosen to offer two options of core airline technology system. Given the different and evolving needs of airlines, we simply don’t believe a one-size-fits-all approach works.

Modernization is reshaping airline models, with the lines between FSC and LCC blurring in some cases and subcategories appearing. We foresee continued evolution and thus a need for flexibility and future-proofing. But at the same time, we recognize that, as a rule, LCCs and FSCs still operate very differently.

Firstly, LCCs tend to fly mainly point-to-point, with domestic or regional networks and a homogenous, narrow-body fleet. They serve a mass consumer base of essentially more price‑sensitive travelers, and the airline must prioritize cost. For them, a simpler, more cost-effective, integrated solution is often just what they need.

On the other hand, FSCs need more sophisticated systems to deal with complex flight networks and heterogeneous, multi-cabin fleets, catering for diverse segments, high-touch servicing and airline partnerships. Often using bespoke systems for certain capabilities, they require modularity: that is, the ability for modules, such as Offer and Order management, and even components like the product catalogue, to work independently and interoperate with those of other technology suppliers. This modularity implies minute attention to detail, the ability to consider knock-on effects of each tiny build design on multiple steps of the traveler journey, and a lot of work to get it right – considering the ultimate objective is a seamless traveler experience from beginning to end and across all touchpoints, including throughout the trip itself.

With that in mind, we have built Amadeus Nevio with the level of sophistication that FSCs demand – but that low‑cost carriers often don’t need. Transition to Nevio is designed to be staged, with the identified business value based on each airline’s priorities being the driving force and outcome of each stage. Transition is at a pace that allows the most complex of airlines and groups to ensure business continuity and transform their business processes in tandem with the technology transformation, while also being able to personalize their customers’ experiences based on aggregated insights and improve their efficiency from the outset.

Navitaire Stratos, our offer for LCCs, helps low-cost carriers (already adept direct retailers in many cases) maximize their retailing potential, modernize their tech infrastructure and leverage the latest in artificial intelligence, thanks to data and cloud-native (not just cloud-based) capabilities. Navitaire Stratos has an integrated design to manage simpler airline operations in a more cost-efficient way. The transition from today’s system, New Skies, is standard and quick.

Both core systems are designed to work in a modular way with other Amadeus and third-party systems. As the retailing transformation goes beyond Offers and Orders, they had to be designed to work smoothly with our payments arm Outpayce, and Amadeus Delivery Management, but also with the wider ecosystem of technology suppliers and travel players. Both systems support extension and connection with third-party systems and partners via digital and industry standard APIs, events and other means. In this way, airlines can choose the core system that best fits their needs and ambitions, knowing that they can build on it and differentiate.

This approach also caters for increased interest in collaboration among all airline types to cross-sell and service, whether with other airlines or non-air ancillary partners.

Amadeus Nevio and Navitaire Stratos will use the new Retailer-Supplier model to enable simpler connections to other airlines and travel partners. With today’s standards and records such as EDIFACT, tickets and EMDs, shared itineraries and general collaboration between airlines with different systems can cause operational and customer service difficulties - a headache for airline groups in particular.

The move to the new Retailer-Supplier model will be a significant step in reducing this complexity, and the fact that Amadeus Nevio, Navitaire Stratos and other new airline systems will all be based on Offers and Orders will allow for easier collaboration within groups and between airlines generally.

From our perspective, the starting point for an airline is their choice of the most appropriate Offer and Order based system. And from there, a wealth of extension opportunities and decisions blossom. I mentioned payment and delivery, but there’s also finance, network planning and a range of capabilities that are transversal to travel companies such as revenue management and disruption management, among others.

For me, the glue between them all, and the key to extending the core systems, is expert professional services. Expertise at the disposal of each customer to turn a combination of products into comprehensive solutions that respond to their unique needs. These services can be in the form of specialized or general competency centers sitting with the airline teams to really understand their needs and provide the most tailored assistance, or in the form of a short-term specialist project implementation team, or other forms.

This kind of close collaboration will only gain in value in the context of the evolution of airline business models previously mentioned. As traditional LCC and FSC models are evolving in many directions: we are seeing areas of both convergence and areas of divergence. With this in mind, we are expanding our resources dedicated to expert professional services for travel companies.

Despite their different ways of operating, all airlines have certain tech expectations in common. They all want the scalability, extensibility, data access, and event flows that cloud and platform readiness will bring. They all want e-commerce modernization, personalization, improved customer experience, flexibility and the new revenue opportunities that come with retail simplification. And they all need seamless migration from their current system to any new one, to ensure operations continue to run smoothly in the always-on airline business.

As a single team working with all airline types, we’re better placed to figure out the best and most consistent ways to meet our customers’ shared expectations. And they are addressed in tandem by the Amadeus open platform, the shared foundation on which Amadeus Nevio, Navitaire Stratos and all our capabilities of the future are built. It brings easier system updates, greater resilience and scalability, more autonomy to airlines in terms of configuration and customization functionalities… and much more, in a standardized way across Amadeus Nevio, Navitaire Stratos and all Amadeus and third-party systems operating on the platform.

The shared open platform facilitates the management and expansion of our partner networks, not just for our benefit at Amadeus, but also for travel companies such as airlines. Through close collaboration with our strategic technology partners, as well as with travel technology super-specialists (like our existing partners providing really specialized services like fraud detection, seat mapping, etc.) will help us not only bring technology transformation to our customers quicker, but also better, than we could do alone. Thanks to this set up, airlines will be able to work more easily with their partners to bring an even broader offering and better servicing to travelers.

And of course, it is key to helping us all realize the benefits of agentic AI. The Amadeus open platform will facilitate making data from systems managing different parts of the traveler journey accessible to the AI agents that will help to remove friction in travel.

The changes we’ve made in our ways of working have not stopped with the engineering and portfolio teams. We’ve restructured our customer-facing teams too, to mirror this single portfolio mindset and to make life easier for our customers, with the goal of having one team for each customer across all Amadeus products and services. Our vision is to empower these customer-centric, locally based teams to be transversal and connected across account management, delivery management and customer success. Relating with all Amadeus product & service teams, managing governance, connecting business priorities with projects.

As is the case with our airline customers, at Amadeus, we’re on a transformative journey, learning and adapting as we go, and striving to make travel better for everyone, everywhere.