Blog

Rethinking airline retailing:
The case for modernising commerce

By Kristian Gjerding

Airlines are sitting on a growth engine hiding in plain sight. The quickest route to higher margins, stronger loyalty, and new revenue streams isn’t a new aircraft or route, it’s modern retailing powered by payment orchestration.

By redesigning how offers are built, orders are managed, and payments are processed, carriers can turn today’s constraints into tomorrow’s advantages, capturing value at every step of the journey for customers and the business.

From our vantage point, the biggest upside sits where commercial strategy meets execution. Legacy platforms were built for a different era, but the shift to offer- and order-led retailing creates room to rethink bundles, pricing, servicing, and settlement. What once felt like a limitation now looks like a launchpad: orchestrate the payment supply chain, unlock approval rates, reduce cost-to-serve, and create new forms of revenue uplift through better conversion and smarter monetisation.

How we do it: CellPoint Digital orchestrates the payment supply chain end to end, connecting gateways and acquirers, alternative payment methods, risk and fraud tools, tokenisation and vaulting, FX and MCP, and settlement, so every offer has the highest chance of becoming cleared revenue.

Momentum is building. Many airlines are advancing towards contemporary retail, and the opportunity compounds when payments are treated as a strategic lever, not a back-office utility. When retail design and payment performance move in lockstep, airlines capture more value from every transaction while delivering a smoother experience for travellers.

Integrating retail and payment systems is therefore the next essential step.

Do it well and you realise the promise of advanced commerce strategies quickly, through higher approvals, intelligent routing, and lower cost-to-serve, without waiting for a wholesale systems overhaul. The question is no longer if to evolve, but how to sequence change to maximise upside and minimise disruption.

Overcoming legacy obstacles

The airline industry faces significant challenges in transitioning from traditional legacy systems to modern retailing approaches enabled by IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) and Offer–Order–Settle–Deliver (OOSD) models. Current processes rely on Passenger Name Records (PNRs), e-tickets, and Electronic Miscellaneous Documents (EMDs), structures that fundamentally limit the ability to use holistic customer data to present personalised offers and pricing.

The issue with legacy data documents, PNRs for all personal and itinerary information, and EMDs for optional and ancillary services, is that they are single use, generated for each travel transaction and that transaction only.

They may contain a wealth of information, but an airline has no way to access that data to understand a passenger’s history, habits, or preferences. It is as if Amazon required customers to create a new profile from a blank screen every time they shopped; say goodbye to recommended deals, subscribe-and-save, and suggested products.

New airline retailing dramatically expands ancillary sales potential beyond current limitations, incorporating complementary components into the total travel experience, such as cars, hotels, theme parks, tours, and other services.

This expansion is the source of OOSD’s revenue potential, but it also creates additional payment complexities related to travel packaging. Multiple merchants, product-level transactions, varied forms of payment, split payment combinability rules, merchant-specific fraud logic, and provider-specific refunding protocols all need to be managed. Orchestrating the payment supply chain converts this complexity into margin through higher approvals, smarter routing, and lower fees.

Our next-gen Payment Orchestration Platform addresses these needs with 13 configurable, rules-driven engines, supporting today’s models while enabling tomorrow’s.

Airlines can standardise control, localise acceptance, and execute a cost-to-profit transformation across channels and markets, without interrupting operations.

The revenue potential of new retailing approaches

Coupled with adopting OOSD practices, our platform also allows airlines to manage all the different elements of an itinerary that collectively form the complete customer travel experience.

Historically, this function has been performed by intermediaries like OTAs and traditional travel agencies utilising the Global Distribution System (GDS). Transitioning to modern retailing helps airlines regain commercial control.

The initial benefits include revenue improvements through dynamic pricing, advanced merchandising, and incremental margins from ancillary products.

According to recent industry analysis, airlines expect to increase revenues by up to 18% by adopting modern retailing and e-commerce technologies. McKinsey indicates that dynamic pricing models can yield 2–3% revenue improvements through optimal inventory management.

Like packaging and ancillary expansion, supporting dynamic pricing and other advanced retailing techniques requires sophisticated payment solutions.

Rules engines built for OOSD provide exactly the capability required, aligning payment logic with commercial intent to maximise conversion across geographies, channels, and forms of payment.

Taking the leap: Preparing payments for the OOSD future

Beyond payment complexities, the transition to OOSD represents a fundamental shift in airline distribution strategy.

Most carriers will operate in dual environments for a period, so the winning approach is progressive deployment, pairing retail innovation with payment orchestration to harvest value early while de-risking the journey.

During this phase, airlines need platforms that bridge today and tomorrow, maintaining continuity while unlocking new capability. The objective is simple: protect revenues now, create lift immediately, and build the foundation for scale.

That is why we designed our Payment Orchestration Platform to span the current ecosystem and the future state.

It is 100% OOSD ready and provider agnostic, focused on maximising payment performance regardless of the OOSD partner while fully supporting existing retail operations.

Airlines can optimally process payments no matter which merchandising solutions they use, if they switch providers, or if they run different platforms by channel. “Future proof” may be overused, but the intent is precise: a platform for every eventuality that unlocks revenue uplift, elevates experience, and scales with confidence.

How Payment Orchestration leads to payment optimization

Payment Orchestration is not merely a technological enhancement; it is a strategic capability that directly impacts revenue performance, operational efficiency, and customer experience. It is the foundation of optimal payment processes, paying both front-end and back-end dividends.

Airlines that invest now will be best positioned to capitalise on the industry’s transition to OOSD.

Current systems show limits handling modern airline commerce, from coordinating dynamic offers and fulfilment to managing ancillaries and multi-payer transactions, leading to foregone revenue, bottlenecks, and customer frustration.

Why has progress been difficult? Too many advancements have been incremental, reinforcing silos rather than redesigning sales, distribution, and payments end to end. Integrating advanced payment systems with retailing frameworks based on NDC and OOSD removes these silos and creates a consistent, scalable commerce approach. Legacy models are giving way to a more varied and flexible ecosystem.

Implementation considerations

IATA’s Airline Retailing Maturity Index shows carriers advancing at different rates. Orchestration platforms that support hybrid environments provide the flexibility airlines need during this extended transition.

To navigate the transition successfully, follow this approach:

Start with orchestration
- Use Payment Orchestration to optimise the current ecosystem while preparing for OOSD. Bridge legacy GDS and EDIFACT and modern models to minimise disruption and enable controlled testing.
Align workflows to business goals
- Configure rules to your specific markets, products, and risk profile, instead of accepting one-size-fits-all flows.
Measure what matters
- Track authorisation rate, cost per approval, checkout conversion, refund and chargeback ratios, and time to cash to prove value and guide iteration.

This approach aligns with broader industry trends. IATA’s Airline Retailing Maturity Index shows carriers advancing at different rates. Orchestration platforms that support hybrid environments provide the flexibility airlines need during this extended transition.

Securing competitive advantage through retail modernization

The limitations of legacy systems are clear, and the benefits of modern retailing are compelling.

Payment Orchestration is foundational to that shift, enabling the complex transaction management required for comprehensive travel retailing. CellPoint Digital’s platform provides the flexibility and capability to support current operations and future models, and to optimise the entire payment ecosystem.

As airlines move towards OOSD, partnering with experienced providers helps manage complexity and accelerate benefits. This is not solely a technology journey, it is a commercial one. Reforming legacy thinking, not just legacy tech, is how airlines unlock the full opportunity. We believe airlines are ready, and we are ready to help.

As your airline embarks on modern retailing, CellPoint Digital can be the technology partner that turns OOSD strategy into real revenue. Get in touch to find out how.