10 November 2026

One third might be enough - ASI’s case study on selling to airlines

By Àlex Ilarza

The short version

This week’s deep dive: How a startup turned a six-month trial with Alaska Airlines into its first airline contract, and what you can learn from it.

Weekly Sales Radar: Frontier’s new revenue chief, SITA’s $500 million deal and Wizz Air’s first step into Amadeus.

Deep Dive

Getting airlines to buy your product means building specifically for their needs. For that, you’ll need time and an inside perspective.

In 2021, a startup called Air Space Intelligence (ASI) announced its first contract with Alaska Airlines for its AI predictive routing technology: Flyways. The contract came after six months of trials with Alaska’s dispatch team, and a longer period of collaboration.

According to ASI’s CEO, they built Flyways with Alaska from scratch. The airline stated, in its announcement in 2021, that its existing systems could not combine all the information in one place. Here ASI had the specific needs, and they could see how their product performed for the client while they were building it.

In the trials, according to both companies, the product offered the opportunity to improve route efficiency on 64% of the mainline flights. Out of those recommendations, flight dispatchers accepted only 32%. Assuming one recommendation per flight, that means only around 20% of the total flights were modified in the end.

Alaska’s network operations director told NPR this year that dispatchers were sceptical about the product at first, but later gained confidence in it as they saw good results.

Under FAA rules, the dispatcher and the captain are jointly responsible for planning and releasing each flight. Flyways works within those rules: it recommends, and the dispatcher decides.

Today ASI counts Delta, United and the FAA among its clients and has expanded into defence. It also renewed its partnership with Alaska three years after the first announcement.

If you sell to airlines:

Choose your first client based on how willing they are to build with you, not their size. According to Fortune, ASI ended up working with Alaska because it was the most willing airline to try ASI’s technology.

Design your pilot so that the airline can measure the results. Alaska went ahead with the deal because they could see real results from six months of trials. During that time, they saved fuel and cut emissions.

Build for those who have the responsibility, and don’t expect them to accept everything. Flyways recommended, but dispatchers decided. In the trials, two thirds of the recommendations the program gave were discarded, and the airline still signed.

Sales Radar

Frontier appoints new revenue chief
James Fenner is now Chief Revenue Officer. He’s in charge of pricing, revenue management, loyalty and network planning. Michael Delehant joins as COO on 30 November. He was previously at Vueling and Wizz Air. If you sell pricing or operations tools, both areas now have someone new in charge.
SITA buys CAE’s airline operations software
SITA has agreed to buy Flightscape (flight planning, crew management and operations control), which is used by more than 90 airlines. The $500 million deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027. If you sell crew or disruption tools, those airlines’ ops supplier will change owner.
Wizz Air opens up to Amadeus
Wizz Air’s fares, bundles and ancillaries will be bookable by Amadeus agencies, OTAs and business travel sellers for the first time, in selected markets. A low-cost carrier will now be selling ancillaries through a new channel, which is relevant if you sell retailing or ancillary pricing.

Your turn

What was harder with your first airline client: getting the trial, or turning it into a contract? Hit reply and tell me.

Work at an airline, or sell to one?

I’m talking to people on both sides of the deal for B2Airline. If you have 20 minutes, reply to this email and tell me what you work on.

Quick bibliography: Alaska Airlines and Airspace Intelligence’s joint announcement (May 2021), Fortune’s reporting on the partnership (July 2021), Alaska’s renewal announcement (August 2024), NPR’s report on Flyways at Alaska (August 2026), The Next Web’s coverage of ASI’s Series C (October 2026) and the FAA’s operational control rule (14 CFR 121.533).