The Silent Crisis No One’s Talking About
Corporate travel is a $996B market. For airlines, that’s not just a revenue stream – it’s a long-term relationship game. Yet while most airlines have invested in modernizing retail and pricing layers, one function remains glaringly outdated: CONTRACTING.
This is where promising corporate deals often stall. Not because the market isn’t there. Not because the airline doesn’t have the right routes or pricing. But because the process to convert a conversation into a signed, compliant, and profitable contract is broken.
And the result? High-intent corporate deals stuck in limbo. Strategic accounts lost to faster-moving competitors. And millions in delayed revenue from contracts that never made it across the line.
Table of Contents
The Contracting Black Hole: Where Momentum Dies
Here’s what happens today in most airline corporate sales teams:
- You’ve had a great pitch.
- The client is ready to buy.
- The proposal’s been accepted in principle.
But instead of issuing a clean, clear, tailored contract within 24-48 hours, the process enters a bureaucratic maze.
Common Contracting Breakdown Points:
- Sales teams are forced to coordinate across multiple stakeholders – Commercial, Legal, and the customer without a unified system, leading to delays and inconsistencies in finalizing contract terms.
- Legal teams work from scratch, with little context or client history.
- Finance pushes back on terms that don’t align with profitability thresholds.
- No single source of truth for approval workflows, historical clauses, or margin validation.
A contract that should take days drags into weeks. By the time it’s ready, urgency is gone. Or worse, the client’s gone.
Problem 1: Every Contract Starts from Zero
Airlines are still relying on outdated techniques and email chains to build contracts. Even when there’s a contract management tool in place, it often functions as little more than a document repository.
There’s no smart reuse of past contracts based on customer segment, region, or deal size. Every term, from fare conditions to SLAs is rewritten or revalidated.
The cost:
- Slower time-to-contract (10-14 days on average)
- Higher legal involvement per deal
- Frequent changes in external factors cause recurring contract updates and delays
Problem 2: Static Offers in a Dynamic Market
Once a corporate contract is signed, the offer often remains unchanged—even when performance data signals a need for review. There’s no structured mechanism to nudge timely action on underperforming or high-potential accounts.
- High-potential accounts continue receiving generic, low-margin deals
- Non-performing accounts remain on discount without review
- Profitability suffers due to inflexible, unmanaged contracts
Problem 3: No Visibility into Risk Until It’s Too Late
Every contract carries risk—especially when approvals are scattered, and performance signals are buried in spreadsheets. Most airline teams have no real-time insight into which contracts are slipping, which accounts are underdelivering, or where margins are eroding.
The result?
- Underperforming deals go unnoticed until the renewal stage
- Missed opportunities to renegotiate, restructure, or exit
- A growing portfolio of silent revenue killers
Problem 4: No Institutional Memory
Ask a sales team:
- What was the discount given to a similar client last year?
- What SLAs were agreed for a similar region?
- Was the deal profitable in the end?
Most will dig through emails or spreadsheets, if they respond at all.
Without a central knowledge base, airlines lose:
- Leverage in negotiations
- Learnings from past contract performance
- Confidence in scaling sales efforts
Problem 5: Compliance Blind Spots
The longer a deal takes to close, the greater the risk of:
- Non-compliance with pricing or volume governance
- Manual errors in fare filing and ticketing conditions
- Mismatched contract versions shared with clients
With increasing regulatory scrutiny and client demands for transparency, this isn’t a small leak. It’s a liability.
The Big Picture: Why This Isn’t Just Legal’s Problem
Contracting isn’t a back-office task anymore. It’s a core commercial function.
It directly impacts:
- Sales velocity: The faster you contract, the faster you close.
- Revenue predictability: The cleaner the contract, the better the forecast.
- Margin protection: Dynamic guardrails prevent undercutting.
- Client experience: Fast, transparent contracting builds trust.
Airlines that fix this don’t just speed up deals, they rewire their entire B2B motion for scale.
What Modern Airline Contracting Should Look Like
Imagine what a modern, intelligence-led contracting and offer engine could unlock:
- Smart Templates: Eliminate manual effort with pre-built, customizable templates designed for different corporate customer segments. These templates are easily monitored by airline stakeholders and automatically trigger the next step in the communication workflow—ensuring timely follow-ups and consistent engagement across accounts.
- Offer Management Optimization: Continuously tracks corporate account performance and dynamically adjusts fare bundles, incentives, or ancillary offers to improve conversion and retention.
- Contract Risk Intelligence: Monitors contract adherence and revenue realization; flags underperformance early with clear signals to renegotiate or exit non-viable agreements.
- Historical Search & Benchmarking: Sales can search “what was offered to similar accounts” in seconds.
- Automated Email Alerts: Get proactive notifications for key contract events such as missed targets, upcoming renewals, or compliance breaches, so no opportunity slips through the cracks.
This isn’t just automation—it’s strategic contracting built for the real world of corporate travel.
Final Thought: The Contract Is the Close
In corporate sales, the contract isn’t an afterthought. It’s the handshake. And in a high-stakes industry like aviation, it has to be fast, fair, and flawless.
So the question isn’t whether you need to modernize contracting. It’s whether your competitors already have.
