Fixing reconciliation: how a streamlined back office can drive airline retail revenue

Reconciliation issues don’t simply slow down finance teams; they restrict how much airlines can sell, how quickly they can recognise revenue, and how confidently they can scale personalised offers across channels. Fixing reconciliation is no longer just an efficiency play—it’s a foundational requirement for unlocking the next wave of airline retail revenue.

A complex tangle of systems and stakeholders

According to the report ‘Retailing ready: towards traveler-centric airport payments’, jointly commissioned by Worldline and Outpayce, a major cause of issues around reconciliation is fragmented payment infrastructure. Airlines frequently rely on third-party providers, such as airport authorities or ground-handling companies, for in-person payment terminals – particularly in locations where they don’t control the full check-in or gate experience.

This situation often leads to multiple acquiring relationships across dozens of markets, with payment data residing in siloed systems. The result is a patchwork of file formats, reporting cadences, and reconciliation timelines – each of which must be manually processed and matched against flight-level revenue data.

In one example cited in the report, a full-service airline dedicates a staff member to manually reconciling payments after every flight. The process involves generating a report from the Departure Control System (DCS), pulling incoming payment data from various terminals, and manually matching each transaction to ancillary items like seat upgrades or baggage fees. The task takes up to 90 minutes per flight. Scaled across hundreds of flights daily, the cost in labour, time, and risk of errors is enormous.

The risk of human error and revenue leakage

Manual reconciliation processes are inherently risky. Mismatches between payment and booking systems can lead to unaccounted revenue, delayed recognition, and compliance gaps. Perhaps even more concerning for the long term, when airlines are not able to accurately link payments to services, they may hesitate to pursue innovative retailing strategies at the airport, and undermine their commercial potential.

The report outlines how more than half of travellers (56%) have had an ancillary fee waived because the airline could not accept or reconcile a payment. This suggests that reconciliation challenges do not only affect the back office; they also influence whether front-line teams feel empowered to close a sale.

An integrated, scalable approach

One way airlines can address this issue is by taking greater control over payments. Airlines that adopt integrated in-person payment solutions – such as Airport Pay from Outpayce and Worldline – gain the ability to manage payments through a single system across all markets. Such solutions offer deep integration with the DCS, enabling real-time reconciliation of each transaction to the correct passenger booking and service.

This approach reduces reliance on local acquirers, supports EMV-compliant card and wallet payments, and enables airlines to automate reconciliation workflows – which saves time, reduces risk, and supports faster revenue recognition.

Innovative airline retailing can only scale if the systems that support it keep pace. As the industry evolves to meet the expectations of today’s travellers, fixing the reconciliation gap is not a just back-office issue, it’s also a strategic imperative. By embracing integrated, global payment solutions, airlines not only gain control of their payments infrastructure, they also unlock the full commercial potential of the complete passenger journey.

Download our full 'Retailing ready: towards traveler-centric airport payments' report to discover how airlines can fix payments reconciliation.