Our guest today, Simon Pitt, brings vast experience in airline revenue management. From roles across Australia, the UK, the US, the Middle East, Japan, and even the Canadian Tourism Commission, Simon has worked on revenue strategies for airlines worldwide. Most recently, his expertise extended to Papua New Guinea, focusing on commercial management and revenue optimisation.
Welcome, Simon Pitt. Where are you dialling in from today? Tell us about your exciting career journey.
“Thank you, Dario, and I appreciate the opportunity. I’m dialling in from just north of Brisbane, Australia, where I’m currently based. My career in airline revenue management results from my interest in analytics, numbers, and a passion for travel. I’ve been fortunate to work in both head office and in-market environments, which has given me a dual perspective on commercial decision-making. This exposure — combined with experiencing different cultures and markets — has shaped my approach to maximising airline revenue.”
Your speciality is revenue management, working with systems, methodologies, and processes. Can you share some innovative highlights from your career?
“I’ve had the privilege to witness the evolution of revenue management first-hand. When I began, the focus was on capacity management, optimising individual flights through basic hierarchical systems. Over time, innovations like public and private pricing and the move to origin and destination (O&D) control transformed how airlines operate.
The implementation of O&D control is particularly noteworthy — it allowed airlines to shift from optimising individual flights to optimising their entire network. This transition wasn’t just about tools and technology. It required changes in people’s skills and organisational structures to fully leverage the innovation.
Additionally, I’ve found success in segmenting the market effectively — targeting students, corporate groups, families, and tour operators — and aligning appropriate inventory processes and fares to capture value while managing peaks and troughs.”
What gaps still need to be addressed for revenue management to be truly effective?
“While airlines have moved towards optimising networks, there’s still work to be done in optimising the entire customer journey.
The future lies in leveraging more parameters at the booking decision point. For instance, knowing where a customer is in their booking cycle enables better decisions. A corporate traveller booking five days out offers limited upsell opportunities, but a student or family booking months in advance provides time to offer ancillaries like seats, bags, or even non-air products — ultimately increasing the total value of that booking.”
Let’s talk about technology. Is revenue management tech still adequate? And what about data and KPIs?
“Airlines have made great progress with the technology available, but there’s still hidden potential. The current focus is on leveraging AI for pricing decisions, customer insights, and cross-selling opportunities.
The challenge lies in linking large data pools effectively to extract valuable insights. Revenue management departments need better tools to integrate data, forecasting, and personalization, which allows airlines to maximise revenue across all segments.”
Some airlines are integrating distribution and revenue management within their organisations. Do you think this is the right move?
“Absolutely. Leading airlines have always placed revenue management at the centre of their commercial organisations. With the shift to Offer and Order Management Systems (OMS), this discussion is being reignited.
The move away from traditional PSS (Passenger Service Systems) and EDIFACT standards is creating opportunities. Some airlines still own their PSS, giving them independence and flexibility. As these systems evolve, airlines will need to decide whether to rely on vendors or bring systems in-house to differentiate themselves.”
Looking ahead, what does the future of revenue management look like in an ideal world?
“I see revenue management maintaining its core focus on inventory, pricing, and demand, but with an added emphasis on:
• Operational Research and IT collaboration for deeper optimisation
• Optimising settlement processes through alternative finance options
• Integrating ancillaries — both air and non-air — into a unified product offering
• Enhancing collaboration with digital and e-commerce teams to improve user experiences across all booking channels.”
Is achieving this future realistic for airlines?
“Yes, it’s achievable, but it will take time. The challenge is the long timelines required for transformation, especially while running parallel systems. Airlines will need patience as they transition away from legacy systems, but the eventual benefits — greater independence and differentiation — will be worth it.”
Finally, what’s your advice for airlines starting their journey into modern revenue management and Offer/Order management?
“Start with people and organisation. Technology is important, but the real enabler of change is the team — its skills, structure, and communication. Airlines need to break down silos and create flexible, collaborative environments. By empowering people to fully leverage new technology, airlines can minimise lost opportunities and drive success.”
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.
