The IATA World Data Symposium 2025 in Dublin took off in style with the energy of Irish drums and dance, setting the stage for two days of high-impact discussions on how data, AI and technology are reshaping aviation.
Kim Macaulay, Chief Information and Data Officer at IATA, introduced this year’s event with a clear vision: to unleash the power of data, foster collaboration and drive transformative change. Across multiple sessions, industry leaders showcased real-world applications, proofs of concept (PoCs) and bold strategies for the future of aviation.
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Unlocking opportunities: Data & AI in action
Lynne Embleton, CEO of Aer Lingus, highlighted the rapid pace of technological advancement, emphasising how data is revolutionising airline operations. From minimising waste in airline catering to enhancing efficiency, AI-driven solutions are creating opportunities that were unimaginable just three years ago. However, the greatest challenge remains "shifting the mindset towards curiosity, exploitation of data and questioning how can we do things better.”
Digitally delivered services, economic development, AI and sustainability
Marie Owens Thomsen, SVP Sustainability & Chief Economist at International Air Transport Association (IATA), provided thought-provoking insights into the economic impact of digital services, revealing that digitally delivered exports now account for 67% of global trade. She also compared investment trends, noting that:
- The global AI investment stands at $160bn
- If that amount were redirected to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), it could cover aviation’s SAF needs from 2029 to 2044
Another striking comparison is that aviation and data centers each contribute 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions. This highlights the pressing need for sustainability-driven innovation.
Economic growth, as measured by Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK) and GDP growth rates, has shown unusual stability, with lower oil prices further supporting GDP expansion. This stability is reinforced by strong employment levels that help to counterbalance the effects of inflation.
IATA projects record-breaking airline profitability this year, yet margins remain slim and vary significantly across regions and carriers. On average, airlines earn just $7 per passenger—barely the price of a pint of Guinness. Every operational cost improvement makes a difference.
Cybersecurity: Beyond defense, toward resilience
Shawn Henry from CrowdStrike delivered a compelling session on cyber resilience, stressing that connectivity is a double-edged sword that drives efficiency while increasing risks. The key takeaway? A proactive security culture is essential for resilience in an increasingly digital aviation ecosystem.
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Architecting with cost in mind: Lessons from Amazon
Dr. Werner Vogels, VP & CTO of Amazon, presented seven principles of cost-conscious architecture, urging the industry to rethink cloud expenses, eliminate digital waste and ensure that each new feature justifies its cost. Cloud outshined all other expenses, but created the highest impact by far in terms of carbon emissions perspective. He also addressed key areas of digital waste, including unnecessary storage retention, over-provisioned compute and inefficient data lifecycles.
Among his key lessons:
- Cost is a non-functional requirement
- Unobserved systems lead to unknown costs
- Cost optimisation is incremental
- Systems that last align cost to business
- Architecting is a series of trade-offs
The intersection of motorsport & aviation
FIA’s Chief Development Officer, Habib Turki, drew fascinating parallels between Formula 1 and aviation, showing how AI and real-time data can optimise both race performance and airline operations.
AI use cases shown at WDS that are driving real change:
- Predictive maintenance & scheduling to reduce turnaround times
- Crew planning optimisation
- Baggage optimisation to solve overhead bin congestion and related delays
- Real-time pilot data for enhancing safety and fuel efficiency
- AI for document compliance to improve regulatory accuracy
- Digital identity solutions that enable seamless travel across complex use cases
Willie Walsh (IATA) emphasised that collaboration and industry-wide data-sharing standards will define the future of aviation: “Collaboration is no longer optional and industry-wide standards for data-sharing will define the future of aviation.”
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What else…
A Tiny island’s big role in AI
One unexpected highlight? The Caribbean island of Anguilla, which owns the .ai domain and is projected to generate over EC$100M in revenue this year from AI-related domain registrations. These funds are now being reinvested into tourism infrastructure, including an airport expansion. Anguilla didn’t get to choose owning the .ai domain as it was assigned by default, but what started as a mere coincidence has turned into a major economic boost for the island.
Hackathons & real-time insights
Innovation wasn’t just discussed—it was put into action! The IATA Hackathon brought together developers tackling cargo optimisation challenges, with students from Trinity College Dublin also taking part. Meanwhile, Rozie AI provided real-time session highlights and key takeaways via the event app.
Looking ahead & exploring more
With incredible moderators, inspiring discussions and game-changing insights, WDS 2025 was a true testament to aviation’s data-driven future. We are looking forward to where this journey will take us next.
See additional photos from the event below!
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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.
