What’s the secret to web giant Amazon’s astonishing success in online retail?

It’s not the digital shopping experience, good as that may be, it’s their ability to deliver, literally, on that retail promise, to match the convenience of their online experience with an equally slick and efficient real world experience.

For this reason efforts to ensure the retailing evolution taking place in the airline world don’t come to naught require the same focus on real-time delivery when and where the customer requires the products and services they have paid for.

Deep in the complex web of systems that are relied on to ensure these passenger services are delivered sits technology giant Amadeus with hardware and systems designed to make the complicated appear effortless and the customer experience of the future intuitive and seamless.

Stephen Hirmer, head of end-to-end passenger servicing, AirOps, is responsible for product and delivery management, passenger services data and Artificial Intelligence in B2B air operations for airline and airport customers at the European travel and airline technology giant.

Speaking to Aviation Business News at the firm’s Altitude25 conference in Lisbon last month, Hirmer said:

“There’s retailing transformation happening on the airline side. They are going from traditional PSS to Offer Order, transforming the way airlines retail. At the same time in the airport we have this move to the airport of the future.

“We are moving from agents behind check in desks, all very static, to where you are identified by walking up to a camera, by biometrics, and delivery is essentially the piece which brings both the sides together – airline and airport operations, what’s happening on the day of departure.

This “putting the rubber on the road” is the equivalent to Amazon’s huge logistics and fulfilment infrastructure without which customers would simply not be encouraged to return time and time again, safe in the knowledge that their one-click order will materialise according to expectations.

Altitude25 featured a presentation from Emirates about how modern technology is already being deployed at Dubai Airport but will be taken to the next level at the new AL Maktoum International Airport which is due to be fully open by 2030.

As well as building the software that will reconcile orders with delivery, Amazon has also invested in building some of the actual hardware that will bring biometrics to the airports of the future.

The firm acquired Vision-Box in 2024, the Lisbon-based technology specialist, that has seen its products installed in more than 100 countries.

For Amadeus there are two aspects to delivery management: this related to regular operations making sure things happen as expected; and service recovery, or what the industry used to call disruption management, the sane thing but having undergone a modern reputational makeover.

“The airline wants to reduce the probability of disruption happening by anticipating the problems which may occur.

“On the other side of things do happen they want to reduce the Impact as much as possible on the passengers.

“I believe in terms of disruption management or service recovery the key is to give visibility to all the service providers that are part of that journey but also the passenger.

“That means for us to consolidate the data on the various actors to anticipate these issues to proactively enable airlines, airports and ground handlers to communicate.

“If, for example, there’s an accident on the highway to the airport the airline could send me a text to say you may need to leave an hour earlier to make that flight.”

Hirmer said providing optimised seamless experiences does require collaboration between parties that are often in competition for the customers’ attention.

But he said there are good samples of where this need to work together to enhance the customer experience is happening.

“In delivery, with the industry moving ahead, we have a retail seller concept where one retailing entity, often an airline, is selling various services to a passenger.

“The retailing airline is orchestrating that process, then the delivery process needs to be orchestrated because we have various actors that are delivering that service to the passenger including airport, hotels and airlines.

“One of the things we are very eager to improve in service delivery is to look at the end-to-end delivery across all services, not just the flight segment.

“This will make sure if things cannot be recovered the passenger will be compensated or we can look at alternative services. If the car rental is not available any more perhaps a train is available or an Uber.”

It is in this area of service recovery that access to data is vital and where AI is being deployed to ensure the options being offered are contextualised for the specific circumstances and optimal for the airline retailer.

“Data and AI is fundamentally underlying what we do,” said Hirmer. “We are using AI and machine learning as we speak.

“I see AI in a very positive light is and when used in a responsible manner. Any AI has go to use the data and it has great potential in the travel industry optimising in all sorts of areas.”

Two-and-a-half years ago Amadeus brought together a group of delivery management champions from the industry to move things forward.

Hirmer admitted that no one has all the answers but that the most important thing is that is it a collaborative effort.

“We believe it’s best if it’s all inclusive, if airports, airlines, ground handlers, all the main actors are part of that group.

“We are discussing what this delivery management should look like. It’s all about customer centricity – the traveller at the centre of all that we do.

“In very few areas of life is there one standard way of doing something. Not every airlines if the same, they gave different business needs and marketing positioning and we believe we can cater for these various needs.”

Hirmer predicted there will be a “longish transition period” as airlines move at different speeds in adopting the latest technology.

But he said the retailing transformation must happen alongside the service delivery transition or there will be a risk of frustrating the customer.

“Some airlines are ahead of the game and front runners, whereas others like to take it step by step and see where the industry is evolving to.

“IT is a means to an end. No customer will fly with a particular airline because they have a certain IT system but they will because of the better service they are given by that airline. If you feel you’ve been taken care of by an airline, that’s why you go back.

“You have loyalty in the experience. That’s why the delivery part is so important because it overshadows in a positive or negative way the perception of the whole journey. That’s why it’s important to get it right.”