CAPA TV

Airline payments have become one of the fastest-evolving and most strategically important parts of our industry today. They used to be seen as back-office plumbing. But that’s changed – dramatically.

Airlines are now recognising that payments are not just a cost centre, but a competitive differentiator. How you let customers pay – and how efficiently you collect and manage that money – has huge implications for loyalty, ancillary revenue, global reach, fraud prevention, and overall customer experience.

As new payment technologies, regulatory shifts, and changing customer expectations converge, airlines are under pressure to innovate - and at the same time, keep things safe, scalable, and secure.

To navigate what’s new, and what’s next, Wendy Ward, Chief Marketing Officer and Michael Marrone, Chief Financial Officer at UATP - a company that has been at the centre of airline payments innovation for decades - joined Rich Maslen, Head of Analysis, CAPA - Centre for Aviation at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit - Asia in Singapore in Oct-2025.

Few things have the potential to spike the blood pressure quite like air travel. Whether it's the mysterious disappearance of gate agents when flights are delayed, a missed connection, a cryptic delay notification, or standing in a queue that defies the laws of physics – for many travellers, what’s meant to be the start of an adventure or a long-awaited reunion can become a source of real stress.

But lately, that stress has become a little less funny and a lot more chronic. Travellers are no longer just anxious about legroom – they’re anxious about whether they’ll get home at all.

And yet, while we all love to grumble about airports and airline meals, the expectations we place on the travel experience have never been higher. Today’s travellers want seamless journeys, instant updates, and proactive solutions – and they want them delivered with the same polish and immediacy as a ride-hailing app. And while airlines grapple with weather, IT outages, and a revolving door of regulations, travellers just want one thing: a sense that someone – somewhere – has their back.

On the other hand, airlines and travel tech companies are battling a very different reality – one shaped by weather volatility, system failures, shifting regulations, and global uncertainty. Delays and cancellations have become more frequent, more complex, and harder to predict.

So, how do we ease customer anxieties in this climate? Can innovation and AI help bridge the growing trust gap between travellers and the travel industry? And can technology — sometimes blamed for the depersonalisation of service – actually become the invisible safety net that quietly protects the customer when things go wrong?

Oliver Dlouhý, CEO of Kiwi.com, took to the stage at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit - Asia in Singapore in Oct-2025 to discuss the subject, addressing this issue through innovative product design and how AI integration can be the invisible architecture protecting customers and simplifying life for airlines.

The fast-growing Asia Pacific aviation sector is forecast to require more than 400,000 new aviation professionals over the next decade to meet demand for increase in air travel. With regional airlines already struggling to attract sufficient pilots, cabin crew and engineers just to meet their existing operations, where is this new wave of aviation professionals going to come from?

• Does aviation have an image problem when it comes to attracting new workers?

• How does the sector attract and retain new talent? What is the role of internal training, upskilling and re-training in maximizing worker retention?

• What are the expectations of the next generation of aviation workers?

• How does the sector look at technologies like AI and automation address workforce gaps?

• How do Asia Pacific airlines compete for staff with the large airlines of the Middle East, North America and Europe?

Mike started his airline career as a pilot with British Airways in 1990 flying Boeing 737, 757, 767 and Airbus A320 aircraft. He moved into management within British Airways in 1996 and by the year 2000, at the age of 34, was appointed as Chief Pilot of their Gatwick operations. In 2001, Mike moved into the commercial side of British Airways as General Manager World Sales. By late 2003 Mike had moved to EasyJet as Operations Director responsible for all maintenance, pilots, cabin crew, airport operations, safety and security. Latterly, in 2005 Mike became Chief Operating Officer. In 2006 Mike took the helm of his first airline, as the CEO of then start-up LCC VivaAerobus in Mexico. After three years, on very little cash investment, the company was thriving with healthy profit margins having weathered, amongst other things, fuel price shocks, excessive over-capacity, swine flu, and peso depreciation. Since 2009 Mike has taken on a breadth of CEO challenges: trying to rescue a massively distressed airline in Europe (Spanair), successfully starting another Latin American LCC (VivaColombia) and leading the efforts to establish a new LCC for Qatar Airways in Saudi Arabia (Al Maha). Having seen many other parts of the world, Mike was delighted to come to Asia in February 2016, taking the helm at Cebu Pacific Air.

The travel retail landscape has fragmented for everyone whether they're content suppliers, channel operators, technology partners or the end consumer. New product and pricing models offer greater than ever flexibility, pricing power and personalisation options, but have also vastly increased the complexity of the booking journey and the amount of time and effort needed to complete it.

• Can new AI solutions like booking agents, consolidation tools and virtual assistants fuse together this travel retail landscape into something more stream-lined, consistent and user friendly?

• Is the industry taking the wrong view - is fragmentation just the price we pay for a travel retail landscape that is focused on innovation, competitive differentiation and meeting ever-changing demands for greater personalisation, new channels and platforms and ever more customised content?

• What does AI offer from different perspectives? Does the promise of AI tools for buyers/consumers - of supporting faster, smarter, cheaper and more personalised travel decisions - run up against the AI tools of suppliers/channels, which want to maximise profits and keep consumers/buyers within their own purchasing ecosystems.

• With the global distribution landscape now more complex and fragmented than ever, we explore the key trends that have tilted the balance in the travel ecosystem. How are changing consumer expectations, channel proliferation, technology diffusion and new retailing opportunities altering the state of play for the sector?

• What are the latest shifts and developments in the complex distribution landscape to help meet the changing consumer expectations?

• What role does data-driven traveller insights play at the heart of business strategies and how will it continue to evolve?

• The impact of AI on Aviation and Travel: How consumers as well as aviation and the travel sector at large, are embracing AI and what it means for travel retailing and beyond.

• How will AI change the way in which airlines manage disruptions on the day of operations, and enable them to better support passenger journeys?

Join CAPA - Centre for Aviation, the world's most trusted source for aviation intelligence, for a comprehensive snapshot of the state of commercial aviation across the globe. Featuring exclusive insights generated from CAPA's extensive data and aviation knowledge tools, this session will not only examine key performance metrics for aviation, but will examine implications for major trends in regional aviation that are shaping the industry's outlook.

Aeroprime Group has a deep understanding of the Indian aviation landscape and market dynamics. Their services are based on industry best practices, and data-driven business strategies.

Uncertainty is a universal acid to aviation businesses: eroding confidence, undermining business plans and forcing leaders into undesirable positions. With uncertainty - economic, political, regulatory and structural - growing for the industry, how do aviation businesses, regulators, lawmakers and other stakeholders respond and adapt to this challenge?

Visa's Lead Economist (Asia Pacific) shares fresh perspectives on Asia Pacific's travel recovery and growth corridors. - revealing how transactional data uncovers emerging travel patterns, evolving customer behaviours and the economic forces shaping the region's travel landscape.