Why the Future of Aviation CX Is Decision Orchestration
When a flight is delayed, one question quietly determines everything that follows: Who gets the meal voucher? At first glance, the answer seems simple. A passenger is delayed. A policy says they qualify. A voucher is issued. But that is not how modern airlines operate. Behind that single action sits a decision-making system evaluating dozens of variables in real time: The voucher is not the decision. It is merely the outcome of a much larger decision process. This is where Decision Orchestration begins. What Is Decision Orchestration? Most organisations think in workflows: Event → Action A flight is delayed. A notification is sent. A flight is cancelled. A rebooking offer is generated. But customer experience is rarely that simple. Modern organisations must continuously answer a more important question: What is the best action for this customer, at this moment, given everything we know right now? Decision Orchestration is the discipline of answering that question at scale. It sits between: Can Decision-Making Be Automated? The answer is yes—but not entirely. Every mature decision engine combines three elements. 1. Rules The non-negotiables. Policies, regulations, compliance requirements, and business guardrails. Rules determine what is allowed. 2. Models The prioritisation layer. Predictive models estimate outcomes such as: Models determine what is likely. 3. Human Governance The policy layer. Leaders decide: Humans determine what is important. The simplest way to think about it: Rules define the guardrails. Models define the priorities. Humans define the policy. The Shift from Reactive to Predictive Historically, organisations reacted to events. Predictive orchestration changes the model. Instead of reacting to outcomes, systems anticipate them. A disruption engine can identify passengers likely to miss connections before they do. A recovery engine can predict who is most at risk of dissatisfaction. A compensation engine can determine where intervention will create the greatest operational and commercial impact. The result is a shift from reactive service to proactive experience management. Decision Science Is Becoming a Competitive Advantage Why do some airlines recover from disruption more effectively than others? Why do some brands feel personalised while others feel generic? It is the quality of the decisioning layer. The organisations creating sustainable advantage are building systems that continuously evaluate: Signal → Context → Decision → Action → Outcome And then learn from the result. This is decision science applied operationally. How We Think About It at 22North At 22North, we view customer experience orchestration as a decisioning problem before it becomes a communication problem. The Future: Decision Intelligence As AI adoption accelerates, most discussions focus on content generation. But the larger opportunity may be decision generation. Not simply writing the message. Determining whether the message should exist at all. The future of customer experience orchestration will be built on a combination of: The winners will not simply automate customer interactions. They will automate customer decisions. Always Informed. Always Assured.
22North At APEX FTE Dublin 2026
A quick look at what we showcased at FTE Dublin in June 2026. At APEX FTE Ancillary & Retailing 2026, 22North showcased a new-generation disruption recovery and passenger servicing platform that connects operations, passenger engagement, and ancillary commerce. Ujwal Makhija, Founder and CEO at 22North shared how airlines can turn passenger moments into measurable revenue outcomes in real-time. AI-powered passenger journeys designed to help airlines and airports manage disruptions, improve communications, generate revenue and deliver better passenger experiences at scale. See how leading airports and airlines are using 22North as an orchestration layer to turn passenger interactions into operational and commercial outcomes.
From Disruption Alerts to Disruption Recovery
In a disruption, passengers remember two things: how long they waited and how clearly they were guided. With 22North as its passenger operations platform, this airline is moving beyond the traditional “send an alert and hope for the best” approach to end-to-end disruption recovery. Instead of simply notifying passengers about delays or cancellations, the airline can create recovery plans, execute rebooking and compensation workflows, and communicate next steps to every affected passenger at scale. Here’s how it works. 1. Detect the Disruption, Not Just the Flight 22North connects to live operational feeds and Passenger Service System events, including delays, cancellations, misconnections, and aircraft-on-ground situations. Rather than treating every impacted passenger as a separate issue, the platform groups affected PNRs into disruption cases that can be managed as a single recovery event. This allows teams to focus on resolving the disruption rather than responding to thousands of individual complaints. 2. Build and Select the Best Recovery Plan For each disruption case, the airline can evaluate multiple recovery scenarios. These may prioritise operational cost, passenger experience, regulatory compliance, or a balanced combination of all three. Once a recovery strategy is selected, it becomes the operational source of truth, defining exactly what each passenger is entitled to receive. 3. Turn Recovery Plans into Passenger Journeys 22North applies business rules to determine the most appropriate action for each passenger. Depending on eligibility, passengers can be: The platform then initiates coordinated, two-way conversations across SMS, WhatsApp, email, and voice channels, allowing passengers to resolve disruptions through a few taps or a single phone call. 4. Keep Systems and Passenger Promises Aligned As passengers make their selections, 22North synchronises those decisions across operational systems, including departure control, movement control, inventory management, and passenger itineraries. This ensures that what is promised during the conversation is reflected in the systems used by airport staff, operations teams, and crew. The result is a consistent experience that eliminates the gap between what passengers are told and what the airline can actually deliver. The Outcome Modern disruption management is no longer about sending messages faster. It is about orchestrating operations, policies, and passenger decisions through a single workflow. By bringing recovery planning, execution, and communication together, airlines can reduce operational complexity, improve passenger satisfaction, and turn disruption management into a coordinated service experience rather than a reactive process.
Turning Drop-Offs into Revenue: Ancillary Growth & Drip Marketing for a Low-Cost Carrier
For this airline, the biggest revenue leaks were occurring in the final stages of the booking journey: failed payments, abandoned carts, and missed ancillary sales opportunities. By addressing these critical moments, the airline achieved a 50-basis-point increase in revenue and a 2.5x lift in average ticket value from recovered bookings. Here’s how it works—without overwhelming passengers with unnecessary messages. 1. Start with Revenue Leakage, Not Campaigns Rather than launching generic marketing campaigns, we begin by identifying where revenue is actually being lost: failed payments, abandoned itineraries, incomplete bookings, and overlooked ancillary offers. Each leakage point becomes a dedicated recovery journey with a clear objective and measurable outcome. 2. Listen to Live Operational Signals Instead of relying on delayed batch exports, 22North connects directly to booking engines, payment gateways, and PNR systems. When a payment fails, a booking stalls, or an ancillary purchase is abandoned, the event is captured in real time and immediately becomes actionable. 3. Apply Intelligent Decisioning Before any communication is triggered, a central decision layer evaluates the passenger’s context: The result is fewer, more relevant interactions instead of overlapping reminders. 4. Orchestrate the Right Channel at the Right Time Every recovery scenario follows a predefined engagement strategy. For example, in a failed payment journey: As soon as the passenger completes the desired action, the journey automatically stops. 5. Equip Agents with Context When human intervention is required, agents have full visibility into the customer’s journey, including messages delivered, links clicked, and actions attempted. This reduces repetitive questioning and allows agents to focus on recovering bookings and driving ancillary revenue. 6. Give Business Teams Control Commercial and customer experience teams can modify journey rules, thresholds, and escalation criteria through a visual no-code interface. Whether adjusting call qualification criteria, reminder frequency, or channel sequencing, changes can be made without IT intervention. The Outcome The result is a unified orchestration layer where commercial objectives, operational events, and passenger communications remain aligned. Revenue recovery becomes systematic, ancillary conversion improves, and drip marketing feels like a service rather than a sales campaign.
Baggage Notifications with Jazeera Airways
Baggage Claim Is Not Usually Where Airlines Create Differentiation But that is exactly why it matters. With JazLink, Jazeera Airways has introduced a more coordinated passenger communication experience, including baggage belt notifications that reduce uncertainty at one of the most overlooked moments in the journey. 1. Integration: Bypassing Silos Instead of relying on isolated batch files, 22North connects directly to the core Passenger Service System and live operational feeds. When a flight lands and a baggage carousel is assigned, our orchestration layer registers the event in real time. 2. AI Logic: Making the Right Decision Airlines often end up sending fragmented messages because systems do not speak to each other. 22North acts as the central brain. Before sending a baggage notification, the logic checks the passenger’s context: The result is one clear, relevant message instead of multiple disconnected updates. 3. Omnichannel Delivery: Taking Action Instantly Once the logic clears the message, 22North routes it to the channel where the passenger is already available. In Jazeera Airways’ case, that means WhatsApp, with the message instantly contextualised and delivered close to the operational event. 4. No-Code Workflow Control: Scaling Without IT Dependency The airline’s CX and operations teams do not need IT intervention every time a workflow changes. Using a visual canvas, they can drag, drop, and edit communication triggers as operational realities evolve. The Outcome The result is a unified orchestration layer where operational truth becomes passenger truth. Passengers receive timely, relevant updates, operations remain aligned, and baggage claim becomes another touchpoint where the airline delivers a better travel experience. Interested in learning how your organisation can deliver this kind of passenger communication experience?
