How Leading Airlines Are Navigating the Shift to Modern Offer & Order Management
The airline retailing landscape is under intense competitive pressure, yet the industry has a long way to go — no survey respondent believed airlines excel at retailing today, and only 14% rated current efforts as good. This independent research by LeapShift and Airline Information examines where carriers stand in 2026: from bundled flight-and-hotel packages to dynamic ancillary pricing, loyalty-driven personalization, and the technology investments shaping the next generation of airline commerce.
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This white paper is a publication in collaboration with LeapShift and Airline Information based on a global online survey conducted between end of January until beginning of March 2026, sponsored by Retailaer. It was constructed as an open survey where anyone could participate — airline employees and non-airline employees working in the airline retailing space. The goal was to get a better understanding of the current state of airline retailing compared to the previous survey from 2023. Following the closure of the survey the data was analyzed and LeapShift provided its views through industry veteran consultant Ann Cederhall.
We have matured significantly since 2023 and now speak about airline retailing as a given, without needing to define it. Airline margins remain thin, and IATA's 2025 report shows an industry net profit of just 3.7%.
Global airline ancillary revenue is estimated at 120–150 billion dollars annually, accounting for roughly 10–20% of total airline revenue. For context, ancillary revenue per passenger typically ranges from $25–60 for legacy network carriers, $50–90 for hybrids, and $70–120 for LCCs. McKinsey estimates a 10–30% ancillary uplift through personalisation and a 5–15% total revenue uplift without any capacity growth.
These figures are presented as ranges because ancillary revenue varies widely by region, business model, and brand strategy; is reported inconsistently across airlines; and is sometimes embedded within 'passenger revenue' rather than disclosed separately.
Ideaworks reports that, beyond co-branded credit cards as a major earner, baggage remains the largest ancillary category, running almost neck-and-neck with seats. Meals tend to be low margin but are important from a customer-experience perspective. Branded fares are also a significant and growing revenue contributor.
In the Airline Information survey, it is striking that 69.7% of respondents report not using any orchestration platform (OMS) or orders to sell products. There is significant progress in the ability to sell ancillaries on partner airlines, but this remains the biggest challenge for many airlines. The area ranked as most important this year was 'technology from vendors that can deliver'.
Despite this, airlines are not noticeably more positive about their own capabilities. There is still too little focus on service recovery and 'moments of truth' when things go wrong. Improvements in rapid refunds are limited, and while digital wallets have grown, they remain more of a distinctive feature than a standard service.
Compensation using miles or vouchers is an obvious tool, yet it is still not widely adopted. Unfortunately, many airline websites and apps continue to underperform. As Tiffani Bova from the Futurum Group points out, 75% of companies believe they are customer-centric, whereas only 30% of customers agree.
Some products that were traditionally bundled into the fare — such as 'cancel for any reason' and flexible change options — are now being unbundled by a few airlines, which is a welcome step towards reducing complexity. However, pricing and rules remain unnecessarily convoluted, and in some cases even raw ATPCO fare-rule text is being exposed directly to end consumers.
We also see growing intent among airlines to evolve into marketplaces, and this trend is no longer limited to AirAsia. Finally, it is worth remembering that in travel, everyone can retail: OBTs, TMCs, OTAs and more.