Airlines, like many mature industries, are at a pivotal moment. Legacy systems and fragmented tech stacks are slowing innovation, driving up costs, and creating operational drag. As technical debt limits agility, many airlines are struggling to meet rising traveler expectations. This is the core of the airline industry’s digital transformation challenge, as well as the key to unlocking profitable growth.

Deloitte forecasts that Gen Z and millennials will drive the majority of US leisure travel by 2030. These digitally native travelers expect fast, intuitive interactions and will prefer brands that deliver them.

At the same time, commerce now touches every part of the travel journey, from ticket purchases to loyalty redemptions, in-flight spending, and branded retail. Each moment must feel consistent, connected, and on-brand. 

Delivering this requires deep modernization. Airlines need technology that reduces total cost of ownership (TCO), unifies commerce across channels, and accelerates innovation velocity. Without a modern platform, even basic improvements are slow, expensive, and complicated. The airlines that modernize now will be positioned to lower costs, strengthen acquisition and retention, and create new revenue streams.

This article explores how legacy systems hold airlines back, and how a modern commerce transformation can unlock efficiency, drive new revenue, and build customer loyalty at scale.

How legacy systems are grounding growth for airlines

The core challenge facing airlines today mirrors the struggle seen across other complex, high-scale industries like manufacturing and retail. Modern consumer expectations are rising fast, but legacy infrastructure is struggling to keep pace.

Today’s travelers expect fluid, connected experiences wherever they engage with a brand. According to McKinsey, more than half of consumers interact with three to five channels during a single purchase journey. And the average traveler switches an average of six times between mobile and web channels before completing a single reservation.

If an airline is relying on fragmented systems that can’t unify these interactions, the result is often a disjointed, frustrating brand experience. More importantly, it can stunt growth. With global travel activity projected to grow 85% between 2016 and 2030, the opportunity ahead is significant. 

But scaling to meet that demand requires modern infrastructure built for speed, flexibility, and seamless integration. For aviation leaders, that means technology must support strategic ambition.

Legacy solutions are limiting strategic ambition

Not only do legacy systems block innovation, they become more expensive the longer they remain in place. Older infrastructure requires heavy resourcing to support new features—if the new functionality is even possible at all. 

As digital needs evolve, such as enabling in-flight snack orders or mobile purchases of branded merchandise, teams are forced to build workarounds and custom integrations. Maintenance costs grow year after year, while technical debt increases with every short-term fix. These brittle, complex systems lead to glacial rollouts, sky-high support costs, and too much talent wasted just to keep the system running.

Real-world incidents continue to show how fragile legacy systems can be. In recent years, Southwest Airlines was forced to cancel 16,900 flights in one week due to the failure of an outdated scheduling system. The disruption stranded two million passengers, cost the airline $825 million, and led to the largest aviation penalty in history. In 2025, Alaska Airlines made headlines after two disruptive IT-related outages in four months led to around 400 flight cancellations costing $50 million due to lost revenue and operational recovery costs.

While most airlines won’t encounter failures on that scale, the underlying dynamic is the same: aging, siloed systems increase operational risk and quietly erode revenue.

Deciding whether it’s time for a change starts with knowing the full cost of standing still. Comparing the total cost of ownership of legacy systems with a modern, unified commerce platform can reveal hidden opportunities to reduce risk, improve efficiency, and unlock growth.

Digitally native travelers are changing the game

A major shift is underway in traveler demographics. Millennials now account for more than half of all air travel spending, and Gen Z is quickly gaining ground. By 2035, these two groups are expected to drive over 80% of airline-related expenditures.

Both groups are digital natives with high expectations. Their decisions are shaped by mobile-first, on-demand experiences, and their path to purchase reflects that. Seventy-five percent of Gen Z and millennial travelers use social media on their smartphones for travel planning. And according to Expedia, they browse an average of 277 pages of travel content before making a single booking.

They also engage with more brands, and are significantly less loyal. McKinsey research shows Gen Z and millennials interact with nearly twice as many brands as baby boomers. But there’s also opportunity here: 78% of consumers are more likely to make a repeat purchase when the experience is personalized.

This shift raises the stakes for airlines. To meet evolving expectations, they need the ability to launch innovative, personalized commerce experiences quickly and consistently. That requires unified customer data, a single view of the traveler across channels, and platforms that make it easier to test and scale new offers without adding complexity or cost. If existing systems are slow to update or stand in the way of innovation, strategic business goals and revenue growth are at risk.

Meeting the demand for seamless travel journeys

Success in today’s travel industry depends on delivering consistent, intuitive experiences across every channel. From booking to post-trip service, every touchpoint matters. As traveler expectations evolve, airlines must adapt to what McKinsey calls the “zero consumer.” These customers expect a seamless blend of physical and digital interactions, no matter where or how they engage. 

They also have “zero loyalty,” and will quickly switch brands if something disappoints. For airlines, that means every part of the journey needs to feel connected and responsive, from discovery to booking, check-in, in-flight, and post-trip interactions.

Today’s travelers also increasingly fall into two categories for spending: those who scrimp and those who splurge. Most no longer spend in the middle. And travel is often one of the few areas where they are willing to splurge, alongside dining and apparel. In fact, 40% of US consumers say travel is a top discretionary spending category.

And those who splurge on travel aren’t who you might think. Many are under 60, and not all are wealthy. More than one-third of luxury travel spending now comes from individuals with net worths between $100,000 and $1 million. 

These “aspirational luxury” travelers have a different mindset. They may choose to spend on one part of the journey, such as a fine dining experience or a flight upgrade, but keep other parts of their trip modest. They look for brand recognition, visible quality, and loyalty benefits that make their spending feel worthwhile.

That’s why every digital experience with an airline counts. A traveler who is otherwise budget-conscious might still make a premium purchase—like an upgraded seat, an in-flight meal, or a branded travel accessory—if the experience is easy and compelling at the right moment.

To serve this evolving customer base, airlines need a flexible and scalable commerce platform. It must integrate with multiple systems across the journey from loyalty, booking, check-in, in-flight services, and retail, to ensure offers appear at the right place and time. 

With unified commerce, airlines can connect these touchpoints, personalize offers based on real behavior, and quickly launch secondary products and services. The right infrastructure allows airlines to personalize offers, optimize conversions, and unlock new value across the entire travel journey.

Strategies for modernizing airline commerce 

For airlines, modern, flexible commerce infrastructure is a powerful way to boost profitability and drive growth. By integrating an ecommerce platform like Shopify into core systems, airlines can streamline operations, accelerate innovation, and improve customer experiences all at once.

To position themselves for long-term success, airlines should focus their modernization efforts in three key areas:

1. Reducing operational complexity and costs

Two critical benefits of a modern ecommerce tech stack are cost reduction and simplified operations. With a single integrated platform that replaces multiple overlapping systems, airlines can significantly reduce total cost of ownership across all channels, from online booking to in-person services.

Calculating TCO goes beyond licensing and maintenance fees. It also factors in indirect costs, such as:

• The time IT teams spend on upkeep
• The delays caused by legacy systems
• The opportunity cost of slower innovation

Modern ecommerce platforms enable faster time to market, more efficient use of internal resources, and a meaningful reduction in technical debt. This all adds up to lower TCO both initially, and over time.

Platforms like Shopify transition commerce operations from capital expenditures to operating expenses. For CFOs, this shift lowers infrastructure overhead, makes costs more predictable, and gives finance teams greater flexibility to manage costs over time. Without the burden of managing servers or managing infrastructure, IT teams can focus on innovation instead of maintenance. The result is a leaner, more agile commerce operation with costs that scale in smart ways.

2. Optimize growth through unified commerce

Whether they’re booking a flight, upgrading a seat, or purchasing branded merchandise, travelers want each transaction to feel easy, connected, and intuitive. According to Gartner, companies that deliver seamless digital commerce experiences see a 25% increase in customer satisfaction and a 20% rise in repeat purchases.

And travelers aren’t the only customers airlines serve. B2B partnerships—such as corporate bookings, cargo operations, and third-party agents—require the same level of efficiency and consistency. That’s why it’s important for airlines to adopt an ecommerce platform that can centrally support all commerce transactions. 

Platforms like Shopify support unified commerce by connecting B2B and direct-to-consumer systems into a single, integrated platform that supports every channel and customer type. For airlines, that can include corporate travel contracts and negotiated-rate portals, travel management company (TMC) integrations, group travel programs, and loyalty redemption stores—alongside in-flight retail and branded merchandise.

The payoff for adopting a modern, unified commerce strategy can be significant. Gartner reports that companies with a cohesive ecommerce strategy see up to 30% higher revenue growth than those without one. Unified data also helps reduce customer acquisition cost (CAC) by making marketing more targeted and by shifting more demand to direct, higher-margin channels.

For airlines, that means more value from every transaction, better service across channels, and stronger long-term customer relationships.

3. Accelerate strategic innovation and agility

When systems are brittle, disconnected, or burdened with technical debt, innovation slows down. And in a fast-moving market, delay comes at a cost. Today’s travelers expect constant improvement, seamless updates, and digital experiences that evolve with their needs. They won’t wait for outdated systems to catch up.

To stay competitive, airlines need platforms that drive agility and speed while still integrating with legacy systems that can’t be easily replaced. Solutions like Shopify enable rapid deployment of new features, allowing airlines to deliver new, upgraded traveler experiences fast. This speed matters for profitability: faster go-to-market means airlines can capture demand earlier, test new ideas with less risk, and move forward on what works.

When their teams can move from planning to launch in days or weeks, airlines unlock the ability to respond in real time. New product lines or services can be rolled out the moment demand appears. Revenue models like subscriptions or add-on product sales can be tested and scaled quickly, without heavy infrastructure costs. 

This level of responsiveness is especially critical in high-volume, low-margin sectors like air travel, where operational speed and flexibility are key to growth. From new offers during booking, to in-app add-ons during the trip, a modern platform makes it easier to experiment and scale what drives profitable growth.

The breakthrough: An ecommerce platform built for velocity

Moving to a modern commerce platform gives airlines a future-proof advantage: increased flexibility, faster execution, and reduced technical overhead. These improvements deliver value in both the short term and over time. With Shopify as the unified commerce foundation, airlines can modernize faster while keeping costs, complexity, and risk under control.

Empowering the progressive CTO/CIO

In industries like aviation, technical debt often runs deep. Entire teams may be tied up maintaining outdated systems, rather than delivering the next improvement in a traveler’s digital experience.

Progressive CTOs and CIOs are rethinking this model. Instead of using valuable developer time just to keep systems running, they shift focus to build what truly drives business goals. 

Today’s tech leaders know the opportunity cost of maintaining legacy infrastructure is high, and many are turning to modern platforms that offer a way out. Shopify absorbs much of the infrastructure burden by handling scaling, security, and performance. This lets technical teams build what differentiates the business.

Instead of building every feature from scratch, teams can tap into an ecosystem of thousands of preintegrated apps and add-ons. New functionality can be launched faster, and developers spend less time bug-fixing and more time delivering innovations that improve the traveler experience and drive growth.

Future-proofing for global scale

Airlines operate across borders, time zones, and languages, placing heavy demands on the infrastructure that powers their digital experiences. To deliver fast, reliable commerce interactions for travelers around the world, airlines need a platform built for both global reach and local flexibility. 

Shopify provides that foundation, doing the heavy lifting around infrastructure for airlines. With high-performance global infrastructure and tools for regional customization, airlines can deliver consistent, high-quality experiences no matter where their customers are. This combination of global standards with local flexibility helps airlines maintain a consistent brand experience, while still adapting to local languages, currencies, and regulations.

Tech teams don’t have to worry about outages, slow performance, or unexpected traffic spikes. This frees them to focus on digital experience upgrades instead of server monitoring and maintenance—or worse, managing costly, complex cloud deployments. 

But performance is only part of the equation. Integration is equally critical. Airlines depend on complex systems like central reservation systems (CRS), booking engines, and property management systems (PMS). A commerce platform must connect easily with these tools. Without integration, it becomes another silo to manage instead of a strategic foundation for growth.

With a platform that combines global infrastructure, localized control, and deep integration capabilities, airlines can build future-proof commerce operations that can rapidly adapt to the constant changes of the industry.

Driving high-impact customer engagement

Airlines have long had access to valuable customer data. Yet many still struggle to use it effectively, often because that data is stuck in fragmented, outdated systems. Without a unified commerce foundation, it’s not easy to turn insights into meaningful action across the customer journey.

But with a platform like Shopify, centralized customer data becomes more accessible. This allows airlines to personalize experiences, offers, and loyalty programs in ways that drive both engagement and revenue. McKinsey reports that 78% of consumers are more likely to make a repeat purchase when they receive a personalized experience. 

And today’s travelers expect these personalized interactions to span every channel. Among those under 40 years old, half use social media to plan trips, and 35% of all travelers do the same. Even within a single platform, the influence is significant. Seventy-five percent of TikTok users say the app influenced a recent travel purchase. Among millennials on TikTok, 45% booked a trip based on video content they saw.

This shift makes a unified commerce and an omnichannel marketing strategy essential. Airlines that don’t show up consistently across digital channels risk losing attention, loyalty, and revenue.

To meet this challenge, airlines need a unified approach to customer data and marketing execution. Platforms like Shopify make it possible to implement direct-to-consumer strategies at scale, without the high overhead of legacy tools. By combining personalization with integrated marketing, airlines can lower customer acquisition cost, drive repeat purchases, and deliver experiences that keep travelers coming back.

Why now is a critical moment for airline commerce

The airline industry is at a pivotal moment. Traveler expectations are increasing, revenue models are evolving, and digital experience has become a primary source of competitive advantage. Yet many airlines remain constrained by legacy systems that increase cost, add complexity, and slow innovation. The stakes are now much more than keeping systems running, they are about whether technology can deliver profitable growth.

As digital-first travelers become the majority and competition intensifies, airlines must rethink how they create and deliver value. Unified commerce, agile infrastructure, and scalable platforms are now strategic necessities that impact growth, efficiency, and customer loyalty. The platform airlines choose today must reduce total cost of ownership, unify commerce across B2B and DTC, and accelerate innovation—simultaneously.

Technology leaders now have the opportunity to shape their company’s trajectory. By modernizing the commerce stack, CTOs and CIOs can reduce technical debt, bring new ideas to market faster, and empower teams to focus on meaningful innovation. With the right platform, airlines can deliver personalized experiences, scale globally, and launch new revenue models with far less overhead.

The choices made today will determine whether an airline leads the next wave of digital transformation or struggles to keep up in a rapidly changing landscape.