Aviation Tech

Aviation technology modernizes every layer of air transportation: flight operations, passenger experience, airline commercial systems, airport operations, and the AI-powered optimization tools that improve efficiency across the $1+ trillion airline industry. Airlines operate some of the most complex logistics operations on Earth, coordinating thousands of daily flights, tens of thousands of crew members, and millions of passengers while maintaining safety records where failure has fatal consequences.

The technology stack is dominated by legacy providers with decades-long relationships. Amadeus ($5B+ revenue) and Sabre ($3B+ revenue) provide core IT infrastructure. Collins Aerospace (RTX) and Honeywell serve avionics and flight operations. These incumbents benefit from extreme switching costs: replacing a passenger service system is a multi-year, multi-hundred-million-dollar project.

AI is finding transformative applications in fuel optimization (3-5% reduction in the single largest controllable expense), disruption recovery (reassigning passengers, crew, and aircraft in minutes rather than hours during irregular operations), revenue management (optimizing millions of pricing decisions daily), and predictive maintenance (preventing the $150,000+ cost of aircraft-on-ground events). Each 1% improvement in airline operational efficiency is worth hundreds of millions annually for a major carrier.

For founders, aviation technology rewards patience: 12-24 month sales cycles, stringent certification requirements (DO-178C for safety-critical software), and conservative procurement. But contracts are enormous ($10-100M+), customers are well-funded, and the operational improvements are worth billions. The most fundable approach targets specific pain points (fuel optimization, disruption recovery, crew scheduling, predictive maintenance) rather than core IT replacement.