Last week, the Mobile World Capital (MWC) Barcelona 2025 gathered industry leaders, tech innovators and digital disruptors to explore the future of mobile innovation, digital transformation and customer experience. With thousands of exhibitors and sessions covering everything from predictive AI to next-gen digital experiences, it was an essential event for staying ahead in airline technology.
Branchspace’s Dorota Ziajka, Product Manager for Triplake On the Go, attended MWC and shared her biggest takeaways from the event.
MWC: More than a conference, a catalyst for change
For Dorota, attending MWC Barcelona wasn’t just about listening to industry leaders present. It was also about applying those insights to the airline industry.
“Events like MWC are crucial for staying ahead of emerging trends. It’s not just about seeing new tech, it’s about understanding how it applies to our industry and connecting with the right people,” she said.
With a mix of inspiration, collaboration and hands-on experience, she emphasised how these events help benchmark strategies, refine digital solutions and push airline innovation forward.
How AI is transforming airline mobile experiences
Artificial intelligence was at the center of nearly every discussion at MWC, influencing everything from personalised search results to intelligent customer support. Dorota saw huge potential for applying these innovations to airline mobile experiences. “AI has the potential to completely transform the user experience in mobile apps,” she said. “For airlines, this means smarter recommendation engines, AI-powered chatbots and predictive trip planning.”
She highlighted insights from the Samsung Mobile Business Summit, where AI-driven mobile enhancements were showcased: “Seeing how leading tech companies approach AI in mobile ecosystems gave a lot of inspiration for how these concepts could translate into airline apps, particularly in areas like intelligent trip planning and real-time assistance.”
The smart airport revolution: Optimising passenger flow & resources
At the Smart Airport Summit, industry leaders focused on how real-time data and automation can optimise airport operations. Dorota noted that, “It takes over 40 people to manage a single short-haul flight today. Airports are now leveraging AI not just for automation, but also for improving resource allocation, security and energy efficiency.”
While these innovations focus on airport infrastructure, Dorota emphasised that real-time data utilisation and predictive analytics will also enhance digital experiences for passengers. “Airline apps can leverage these trends to provide smoother check-ins, proactive updates on delays and smarter disruption management,” she added.
Pushing boundaries with Vueling’s NextGen Aviation Challenge
One of the standout sessions for Dorota was the Vueling NextGen Aviation Challenge, which invited external participants to propose out-of-the-box aviation solutions.
“It was a fantastic example of how airlines can encourage outside-the-box thinking and challenge legacy processes,” Dorota said. “Rather than just internal brainstorming, this format welcomes vendors and industry experts to innovate on customer experience and sustainability.”
Glovo’s mobile-first strategy provides a lesson for airlines
Dorota also attended a session by Glovo, where the company reflected on ten years of mobile-first business. The session resonated with her, particularly regarding user engagement, personalisation and operational efficiency.
“Their insights on mobile-first engagement were directly applicable to airlines. High personalisation is the future of mobile commerce, and airlines need to refine their digital retailing strategies to keep up,” she shared.
AppTweak's masterclass on elevating app store ratings
Dorota had an insightful conversation with AppTweak, discussing how airlines can improve app store visibility and conversion rates. The discussion covered strategic keyword usage, metadata optimisation and improving app graphics to boost engagement.
“User behavior varies across different regions, so global app ratings need to be managed carefully,” Dorota explained.
She also emphasised the importance of smart in-app prompts for reviews: “It’s a great strategy when done right, but it has to be seamless. You don’t want to interrupt the passenger experience—timing and execution are everything.”
Seamless connectivity & automation is the future for mobile apps
Reflecting on MWC’s biggest trends, Dorota sees a future where airline mobile apps are more intelligent, connected and automated.
“The future of airline mobile apps is about seamless connectivity,” she stated. “We’re moving toward AI-driven services, from personalised search and booking to real-time customer support.”
Key trends she highlighted include:
- Voice and gesture-based interfaces that reduce reliance on traditional touchscreens
- 5G-enabled in-flight experiences to enhance entertainment and connectivity at cruising altitude
- More automation in the airport experience, from baggage tracking to disruption management
Final thoughts before takeoff
MWC Barcelona 2025 reinforced the importance of AI, automation, and mobile-first engagement in shaping the future of airline digital retailing. Dorota’s key takeaways underscore Branchspace’s commitment to integrating cutting-edge technology into our Triplake platform, ensuring airlines stay at the forefront of digital transformation.
Want to learn more about how Branchspace is helping airlines redefine digital retailing? Get in touch with us today!
The average airline web portals is not broken. It loads, it sells tickets. It technically does what it's supposed to do.
And yet, the experience feels tiring.
You notice it when you try to do something simple. Change a seat. Find your gate. Understand what happens if a flight is delayed. Suddenly you are scanning long pages, decoding airline terminology, clicking back and forth just to stay oriented.
The problem is not with the features, It is effort effort required in getting from A to B.
Airline portals still expect travellers to think like systems. To understand menus, categories, fare families, ancillaries, rules. But travellers arrive with something much simpler. Intent.
They want to get something done and get on with their journey.
This article posits that airline web portals should stop behaving like navigation systems and start acting as intent-aware decision environments. When UX is designed to reduce effort, adapt to context, and quietly support travellers at each stage of the journey, portals become calmer to use, easier to trust, and far more effective for airlines.
The basics still matter more than airlines think
Before talking about AI or personalisation, it is worth being honest about the fundamentals.
You can see that accessibility standards aren’t yet being applied and portals aren’t optimised for mobile, which results in performance drops. Navigation feels heavier than it needs to be. Search often works, but only if you already know what to ask and how the airline expects you to ask it.
These are not exciting topics, but they shape everything that comes after. If a portal is slow, confusing, or inaccessible, no amount of intelligence layered on top will fix the experience.
At Branchspace, we see this repeatedly. Airlines want to move faster, personalise more, experiment. But the UX foundation is not always ready to support that ambition.
Where portals lose traveller trust
The biggest UX issues are rarely dramatic, they are subtle and cumulative:
- A vague error message that offers no next step
- A long paragraph that hides the one thing the traveller needs to know
- Three different words for the same concept depending on where you are in the journey
- A mobile page that technically works but feels endless
In isolation these are small instances, but they compound to create friction for a user. And friction erodes confidence.
Travellers begin to hesitate, scan more carefully, and spend extra effort just trying to stay oriented. They stop trusting that the portal will help them when things go wrong. Good UX goes beyond delight, it is about reassurance.
Decision-making is the real job of UX
Every airline portal is a decision-making environment:
- Choose a flight
- Choose a fare
- Choose a seat
- Decide whether to rebook or wait
The role of UX is not to present all options equally. It is to reduce the mental work required to choose well.
That is where simple principles matter more than flashy ideas: clear visual hierarchy, familiar patterns, plain language, and progressive disclosure.
When these are done properly, travellers stop analysing the interface and start moving confidently through it.
This is also where intent-led thinking becomes powerful. When portals are designed around tasks rather than pages, complexity begins to fall away naturally.
What changes when you design for intent
When you stop designing for navigation and start designing for intent, the portal behaves differently:
- Shift the focus to intent and the portal begins to respond in new ways
- Search leads the experience rather than sitting in the background
- Logged-in travellers with an upcoming trip see what they can do next, instead of being asked to explore
This is the direction we have been taking with platforms like Triplake by allowing the portal to respond to context, trip stage, loyalty status and behaviour.
Where AI actually helps and where it should stay quiet
AI has a role in airline UX, but it works best when it stays in the background rather than taking centre stage. The strongest AI-driven experiences are often the ones you barely notice, because the interface feels simpler and the path forward feels clearer.
That might mean routing a traveller straight to the right outcome based on a natural language query, or surfacing the most relevant rebooking option when a disruption occurs. In other moments, it is about removing repetition altogether, using known preferences to spare travellers from making the same choices again and again.
At its best, AI offers clarity, supports decisions without trying to make them on the traveller’s behalf. People still want to feel in control of their journey, they just do not want to work so hard to get there.
The portal is becoming a living interface
The most interesting shift we are seeing has very little to do with technology and everything to do with behaviour. Airline portals are gradually moving away from being static websites and towards adaptive interfaces that respond to where a traveller is in their journey.
Before the trip, the portal helps you prepare. On the day of travel, it shifts into a supportive role, surfacing the information that matters most in the moment. Afterwards, it follows up, closing the loop rather than simply ending the experience.
Making this work demands modular design systems, flexible platforms, and teams that think beyond individual pages and flows. It is not an easy change, but it is both achievable and increasingly necessary.
