The Offer-Order transition is well underway, but are airlines missing out on opportunities that could inhibit growth?

In the journey away from legacy systems, Datalex CEO Jonathan Rockett believes payments are becoming an overlooked point of friction. Airlines are keen to experiment with ancillaries and personalisation, but at the end of this product flow the final payments step can be underdeveloped.

The stakes are so much higher for an airline. Missing out on a customer represents a huge value loss for them.

In the payments world, AI could be a key enabler for driving higher profit margins. But at the same time, Rockett, an accountant by trade, believes preserving order trails and accountability must be the biggest priority. Besides, airlines are not always keen to hand control of their core pricing system to a third party. Plug-and-play technology is a useful tool for airlines to experiment.

Airlines can build their own internal models and test those against our models, which allows them to have more control over what they’re building.

Rockett advises airline against jumping straight into personalisation, in spite of all the hype around that dynamically bundled solutions. He believes ‘getting the basics right’ should always come first to prevent a scattergun approach.

Airlines definitely need a data strategy because a lot will underpin that, whether it’s AI or just making changes, everything is sourced from data. There’s too much at stake for someone to make a call without being able to substantiate why they’re making a decision.

🎥 Watch the interview to hear the full interview with Jonathan Rockett.
Questions asked include:
  • What retail opportunities are airlines currently missing? How have traditional retail strategies limited revenue growth?
  • What about AI? How can it be used to inform stronger pricing strategies?
  • Is personalisation the game changer everyone says it is? How can airlines deploy personalisation effectively to get closer to the customer?
  • What role does data play in this? What kind of foundations do you need to pivot to an Offer/Order strategy?

Join us at Aviation Festival Asia 2026 to discuss the future of retail and payments.

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