Rethinking the airline playbook for the AI era

Artificial intelligence (AI) permeates every layer of the travel industry, forcing airlines to adapt and rethink connectivity and retailing.

While much of AI, particularly agentic forms, are still part of the hype cycle, the technology has already positively impacted personalization. That progress, however, requires a degree of caution.

“You have to be very, very thoughtful around the messaging that you send and around how you try to understand profiles holistically over time,” Tanner Huysman, director of e-commerce, ancillaries and loyalty for Vueling Airlines, said during an executive panel at Phocuswright Europe last month.

“I think the ceiling for that is making sure that you’re not getting to a point where you’re becoming so personalized that when you misunderstand the intent, you’ve now made it more of a friction journey for that guest.”

Panelists also discussed the growing role of large language models (LLMs) in travel discovery and the potential impact on airline visibility.

According to David Gunnarsson, CEO of Dohop, travelers using LLMs may be more focused on finding the right option for their trip than booking with a particular airline.

“There is a bit of a gap there because obviously an airline doesn’t want to become a nameless brand, that’s the opposite of the point, but I think that is something airlines will have to learn how to adapt to once we get further and further into the discovery and planning phase within LLMs,” Gunnarsson said.

The intelligence layer is another component. According to Juan Manuel Agudo Carrizo, VP of product at Travelport, the company's system could supply an LLM with higher-quality data than what it may obtain by scraping websites.

“It’s just about those modules of information. It’s all about how much data are you feeding and the feedback loops for the intelligence layer to get better and better and better,” said Juan Manuel Agudo Carrizo, Travelport’s VP of product.

Still, trust will be key to whether agentic booking takes off.

“Today, you will trust an agent on a TMC to book for you—you might not even want to touch it, you trust them, right? [But] today, you might not trust an LLM because when it comes to putting your credit card in, it might hallucinate,” Agudo Carrizo said, adding that he does believe the industry will move towards automation.

“They’re going to know everything about you. Airlines, travel agencies are going to give them all their CRMs and they’re going to say, ‘Just book it for me; I know you know me very well.’”

The panel also covered New Distribution Capability in an AI retailing environment, payments and more.

Watch the full conversation with PhocusWire executive editor Linda Fox below.