Service delivery FAQ. Interlining, rich content and industry change

What is ad-hoc interlining in an Offer-Order?

Ad-hoc interlining is supported in the Offer and Order model without requiring pre-filed fares or prorate agreements.

Instead, one airline can dynamically construct an Offer that includes another airline’s service, based on real-time availability and commercial logic.

This is enabled by clear retailer and supplier roles, and by Offer confirmation and Order creation messaging between partners.

The Delivery relevance is where this becomes real. When the retailer owns the Order and the supplier is responsible for delivering the service, status like “Ready to Fly” needs to be communicated back to the retailer to update customer channels, inform refund and payment status, enable settlement and reporting, and maintain lifecycle traceability.

Triggered by Delivery/Departure Control and sent via Order Management System (OrMS): the operational event happens in the airport system, then the supplier’s OrMS captures it and sends the structured service status update to the retailer's OrMS using standard messages like ServiceStatusChangeNotif (and optionally UpdateServiceNotif).

That is what turns “we can sell partner content” into “we can deliver it at scale”.

Where is rich media used in Offer-Order shopping and pricing flows?

Rich media support is embedded in:

• AirShoppingRS
• OfferPriceRS
• SeatAvailabilityRS
• ServiceListRS
  

It enables cabin imagery, seat previews, ancillary visuals (for example, meals and lounge amenities), and fare brand illustrations.

This is not an abstract retail point. If you want fewer airport arguments and fewer manual fixes, product clarity matters. Rich content helps sellers and direct channels merchandise offers more effectively, driving upsell and clarity. 

What practical benefits are airlines realising from Order-based Service Delivery?

Here are concrete capabilities being framed as “what was painful in the legacy model, what becomes straightforward in the Order model”:

• Handling three passengers on different flights: legacy often requires split PNRs; Order can support it as a single object.
• Adding ancillaries post-booking: legacy is complex and often needs reissue and EMD processes; in the Order model, a single call adds to the Order.
• Tracking what has been delivered: legacy has no unified visibility; Orders support per-service status tracking.
• Refunding a single service: legacy is often manual; Orders support targeted refund via the relevant OrderItem.
• Sharing booking details without exposing price: not really possible in the legacy model; Orders allow controlled sharing.
• Real-time service updates: legacy relies on SSR and queue-based patterns; Orders support event-driven updates.
• Structured accounting and reporting: legacy is manual or ticket-based; Orders support Order-based revenue messages.

All of this depends on a simple shift: “Delivery with Orders” means delivery is driven from the Order, not from EMD coupons, ticket records, or PNR-based queues.

Delivery events refer back to OrderItems and services that carry entitlement, conditions, current status, and operational associations.

Do industry standards processes need to change to support Order-based Delivery at scale?

Yes, it is due for serious reflection.

Most airline standards today are created and governed by a single body using a working group structure, with voting and participation limited to paying members.

That has benefits (coordination, legitimacy, airline alignment, vendor engagement), but the challenges are increasingly hard to ignore.

Key problems in the current standards:

• Too slow for digital change: release cycles and governance lag real-world implementation, while digital ecosystems ship weekly.
• Paywall to participate: fees, travel, and insider process knowledge limit who can contribute.
• One size does not fit all: standards become abstract, then diverge anyway through bilateral extensions and profiles.
• Innovation happens outside the standard, then gets retrofitted, turning the standard into a bottleneck.
  

What disruption could look like is not tearing down the work IATA is leading. It is modernising and opening the process: open repositories and pull-request proposals, lighter working groups with faster cadence, and an implementation-first mindset with reference implementations and test suites. 

This matters to Service Delivery because interlining and multi-party fulfilment only work if Delivery semantics and status messaging are consistent end-to-end. If standards cannot keep up, airlines will keep building bilateral patches, and scalable cross-airline delivery will stay out of reach.