Beyond booking: Why Operations and third-party retailing deserve seats at the Offer/Order table

Many airlines are still doing discovery or building business cases. During this phase, commercial considerations dominate the conversation. But this focus on selling in a better way ignores a crucial factor: what matters most to the passenger is not the booking but the delivery.

So, it’s time to ask a harder question — is Operations being left behind in the Offer/Order conversation?

Operations: the forgotten pillar of Offer/Order?

Despite Offer/Order's “end-to-end” ambition, many programs today remain commercially led. Many airlines have admitted to limited engagement with Operations teams.

This is not a small omission. At the end of the day, Delivery — not Offer or Order — is what passengers experience when dealing with an airline. Today's service delivery on traditional DCS (Departure Control Systems) is highly fragmented, with little or no service data.

Why it matters:

• Accountability begins now: Accountability for what’s sold can’t wait until the Delivery phase in your roadmap. But if built on top of legacy PNRs, expect data fragmentation and complexity. Orders are a cleaner, future-proof way to handle service information.
• Early involvement is crucial: Even if Delivery is seen as “a 2026 problem,” its foundations are laid today. Replacing the DCS affects airport staff, call centres, cabin crew, and handlers.
  
• Orders simplify Delivery: In an Order-based world, operational data, scattered across PNRs, SSRs, and multiple queues, becomes structured and consistent.

Third-party retailing: a prize with complex logistics

There’s no doubt that the ability to retail third-party content — hotels, transport, insurance, even lifestyle products — is one of the most compelling opportunities in Offer/Order. For many, it's a key driver for transformation. But selling is the easy part. Service management is the key to getting this right:

• Customer experience across partners: When a third-party fulfils part of the customer journey, the airline can’t entirely step back. Visibility of service status, reference numbers, or even basic confirmation helps maintain continuity.
  
• Data integration is non-negotiable: Third parties need access to structured service data and should be able to send updates back. The Order is the single source of truth for journaling what happens.
  
• Servicing must be connected: What happens when customers change their flight but have a bundled hotel or car booking? Who owns the rebooking? Who informs the partner? Without a cohesive two-way communication plan, the airline will not have the visibility it should have.
  
• Not just about margin, but experience: Selling third-party content isn’t just about revenue. Poor third-party servicing affects brand perception, even if the airline isn't directly to blame.

Looking ahead: What should airlines do now?

Even if your Offer/Order program is commercially led, it’s not too early to widen the conversation to include Operations and think about when, what and whether to sell third-party content.

Three imperatives for 2025–2026:

• Be realistic but bold: Not every airline will become a retailer of third-party content overnight. Curation, clarity, and accountability are key. Start small, but design for scale.
• Engage Operations early and often: Identify Delivery touchpoints now. Involve your Ops teams in discussions about system replacement, service workflows, and exception handling.
  
• Design for the ecosystem: Don’t treat third-party fulfilment as an afterthought. Build integration points and data-sharing protocols into your Order Management strategy from the start.