Blog Series: Why Airlines Are the Hardest Customers in Technology
Series Introduction
Selling a great product to an airline is not the same as getting an airline to actually buy, deploy, and rely on it. That gap is the subject of this conversation. Our panel walks through why airlines move slowly on technology even when the business case looks strong, what separates a vendor from a true partner in the eyes of airline leadership, and why the most technically elegant solution in the room is rarely the one that wins. The throughline is that airlines aren't hard to sell to because they're behind on technology. They're hard to sell to because the cost of getting it wrong, operationally, financially, or in front of a planeload of customers, is higher than in almost any other industry.
Ask any technology executive who has tried to sell into an airline, and you'll hear some version of the same story: a strong pitch, a compelling number on a slide, genuine interest in the room, and then months, sometimes years, of nothing closing. The instinct is to blame bureaucracy or risk aversion. The reality, according to the executives we spoke with, is more specific than that.
Airlines run on decades-old infrastructure that newer systems have to work around rather than replace. Every dollar of technology spend competes against dozens of other priorities pulling on the same limited budget. And because customers sit inside the operation itself, a software bug or a failed rollout doesn't stay internal. It shows up as a delayed flight, a long line, or a bad headline.
None of that means airlines are closed to innovation. It means the bar for getting taken seriously is different, and most providers never clear it because they're solving for the wrong problem.
We sat down with three executives who have spent their careers on the buying side of that equation, with Jim Barry moderating:
Jill Surdek, who spent 20 years at American Airlines leading teams across revenue management, customer experience, and airport operations, and later headed Amazon Logistics' Central Division.
Bridget Blaise-Shamai, a commercial strategy executive with deep experience in data, AI, loyalty, and digital partnerships, who has advised aviation, rail, and fintech companies on growth.
Patrick O'Keeffe, a longtime American Airlines leader who ran some of the airline's largest technology and business transformation programs.
What follows is their unfiltered take on what actually gets a technology company in the door, and what gets it shown out.
We're publishing this discussion as a three-part series:
Part 1: Why Airlines Are Structurally Hard to Sell To — XXX, 2026 at 12:00PM ET
Part 2: Getting in the Door, and Getting Adopted — XXX, 2026 at 12:00 PM ET
Part 3: AI, Governance, and the One-Hour Pitch — XXX, 2026 at 12:00 PM ET