Why the future of disruption recovery lies at the intersection of integration, transparency, and empathy.
This is The Technology Perspective and it is the third part of a series called The State of Play, taken from a keynote delivered at Grounded, 2025.
Why Technology Is the Missing Link in Airline Disruption Management
Technology sits at the center of the gap between what passengers expect and what airlines are able to deliver. It acts as the critical connector—yet it often falls short not because systems are insufficient, but because they were designed from the inside out. Modern disruption management requires a shift in perspective: technology should not bend passenger needs to system constraints, but rather shape systems around the real needs of passengers.
True progress emerges when airlines begin with an understanding of the passenger’s experience during disruption and then adapt or build technology to meet those expectations. It’s not a matter of replacing everything; it’s about reframing how systems are conceived, integrated, and used.
Start With Passenger Needs, Not System Limitations
Traditional airline technology initiatives frequently begin with existing system capabilities, asking, “What can our platforms do?” The more transformative approach starts with the passenger: “What does the traveler need right now?”
In 2025, passenger-centered design is more than an approach—it’s a competitive differentiator. Airlines that audit real passenger expectations from the outset are better positioned to build digital ecosystems that are efficient, empathetic, and resilient.
When technology is shaped around what passengers value, it becomes a tool for delivering care, not just operational tasks.
The Three Passenger Expectations That Define Modern Travel
Urgency
Passengers want immediate acknowledgement and visible progress. Speed of communication matters as much as speed of resolution, and even automated updates can create a sense of momentum while operations work to solve the problem.
Personalisation
Recognising each traveler’s context—travel purpose, itinerary, preferences—turns disruption recovery into a more human, tailored experience. Admittedly, personalisation is the drum the aviation industry has beat for the last decade, and in the context of data privacy and regulations can be difficult to navigate, however, it can be as simple as asking the passenger how they would like to proceed, rather than assuming.
Control
Providing meaningful options—such as self-service rebooking, alternative routing, or compensation choices—gives passengers a sense of agency at a time when they typically feel powerless. The goal isn’t to shift responsibility onto the traveler, but to offer flexibility that aligns with their priorities.
What Airlines Can Learn From Mobility and Digital Banking
Industries that have reinvented customer experience have done so by starting with user needs, not system constraints.
Mobility: Visibility Reduced Cancellations
When mobility platforms reimagined the ride-hailing experience, they didn’t begin with dispatch systems or fleet upgrades. They focused on three core user questions:
- Where is my car?
- How much will this cost?
- Am I in control?
By meeting these needs with real-time visibility and transparent communication, they reshaped an entire sector. Lyft later demonstrated this clearly: simply improving real-time driver tracking reduced cancellations and “Where is my driver?” support calls—without making cars arrive any faster.
Airlines face a parallel challenge: the biggest problem during disruptions is often not the delay itself but the lack of visibility. Technology that provides continual updates and clear next steps dramatically reduces anxiety and improves experience—without requiring fundamental operational changes.
Between people, acknowledgement is always the first response to struggle; it’s the first step in empathy. And it is no different in customer recovery—acknowledge the problem.
Banking: Practical Innovation That Feels Personal
Banks invested in modernizing their back-end systems for years, yet what customers valued most were small, practical features: instant fraud alerts, real-time balance updates, and faster transfers.
Monzo demonstrated this shift clearly—its instant transaction notifications became a signature feature, resulting in:
- Reduced fraud concerns
- Decreased support calls
- Greater trust simply by keeping customers informed in real time
These improvements didn’t require re-engineering the entire industry. They made customers feel informed and in control.
Airlines can take the same approach. Practical, human-centered enhancements—push notifications, intuitive self-service tools, real-time disruption updates—can meaningfully shift passenger perception of both the brand and the disruption moment itself.
Low-Lift Technology Improvements That Deliver High Passenger Impact
Bridging the gap between systems and passenger expectations doesn’t always require sweeping transformation. Some of the most effective changes are targeted enhancements that create smoother experiences with minimal operational lift.
Examples of High-Value, Low-Lift Enhancements
Unified interfaces
Bringing rebooking, accommodations, and communication into one connected platform.
An obvious barrier to execution would be access to the underlying data sources required to deliver this; airlines with heavily siloed legacy systems may need foundational integration work before the interface truly becomes unified.
Self-service tools
Allowing passengers to manage their own recovery with simple, flexible options.
That said, self-service is easiest to deploy when policies are already standardized; airlines with complex regional, regulatory, or fare-rule variations must first simplify rules for self-service to function reliably.
Proactive notifications
Reducing uncertainty through regular, automated updates rather than reactive communication.
Automated messaging requires reliable, real-time operational data—if upstream data is incomplete or delayed, notifications may increase confusion rather than reduce it.
These enhancements shift technology from being a purely operational resource to becoming an experience enabler—while still acknowledging that even “small” improvements require the right foundational conditions to succeed.
Why Transparency Is the New Competitive Advantage
The most impactful technological improvements share a unifying principle: visibility.
Transparency provides emotional reassurance. When passengers understand what’s happening and why, frustration decreases—even if the delay remains the same.
Consistent, honest updates build trust. Silence, by contrast, amplifies anxiety. In this sense, technology becomes a mechanism for delivering empathy at scale.
Shifting From Operational Infrastructure to Experience Infrastructure
Historically, airline technology has been built around operational efficiency—aircraft utilization, crew management, load factors. The next evolution is experience infrastructure: systems built to serve human needs as seamlessly as they support operations, eliminating the need for any tradeoff between the two.
This evolution does not require abandoning legacy systems. Instead, it calls for integrating them into connected ecosystems that prioritize visibility, personalization, and empowerment.
When this shift happens, operational efficiency and passenger satisfaction stop competing and start reinforcing one another.
The Future of Airline Technology: Human-Centered, Connected, Transparent
The path forward lies in blending integration with empathy. Airlines that design technology around people—rather than processes—move from reactive problem-solving to proactive trust-building.
Bridging the gap between passengers and systems doesn’t mean doing more. It means doing what matters most:
- simplifying workflows
- connecting siloed tools
- communicating consistently
- enabling meaningful choice
When technology is designed with these principles, it becomes more than infrastructure—it becomes a bridge of trust between airline and passenger.
Want to Be Part of the Future of Disruption Management?
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