A perspective by Blaine Powell, Chief Sales Officer at Ink
Airlines are pushing ahead with Offer & Order, but too often, the promise of retailing runs into a wall at delivery. From this perspective, Ink’s Chief Sales Officer Blaine Powell argues that the sequence needs to flip: modernise delivery first so every purchase becomes a living order that can be changed, fulfilled, and supported in real time.
Legacy, distribution-era processes treat ticketing as the finish line. That makes it hard to service dynamic products, support third-party offers end-to-end, or give frontline teams the tools to care for guests without workarounds. By building a Service Delivery layer, one place to manage entitlements, changes, exchanges, refunds, and partner fulfilment, airlines create the conditions where retail can scale safely.
“Fix delivery first so Offers and Orders can behave like retail—reliable, flexible, and guest-centric.”
With modern delivery in place, merchandising and experimentation upstream become easier. New experiences can be introduced without re-plumbing legacy stacks, payments and settlement become smarter, and data flows back to improve service design. The shift is simple but profound: from selling tickets to delivering experiences.
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