Every side of the table
I have sat on (almost) every side of the flight distribution table.
Twelve years at Amadeus. Two years at IATA on NDC — I went to find out whether airlines were serious about API-based distribution. Some of them were, so I founded my flight aggregator flyiin and built it in Berlin. Priceline acquired us, and I stayed three years with them. Most recently, I worked for DerbySoft and took them into flight distribution.
I am now independent, and work with a few clients at a time.
What I do
Companies don't call me because they don't know what to do. They call me because they need an outside and somehow out of the box point of view.
I start by working out what is actually happening, draft a honest picture, and then stay to build, fix, or put in place whatever is needed.
You won't get a report or a deck from me. Instead, I'll stay until the thing is actually running.
Three things
If your problem isn't one of those, I'll be frank and tell you I can't help.
Organisational efficiency
Getting what your teams know out of people's heads, centralising and structuring it in a way that AI agents will be able to use.
Call me when: you need that knowledge ready for your AI agents, and nobody has the time to get it there.
Strategy and positioning
Choosing what to sell and to whom, then saying it in a way that your market recognises and values.
Call me when: you need one answer to what you do and who it's for, and right now you have three.
Partnerships
Finding the right partner, checking they are actually the right one, agreeing terms that work for everybody and building the relationship afterwards.
Call me when: you need a capability or content you don't have, and no reason to build what someone else already has.
Things I believe
No more silos. The airline product is complex. The value chain is worse. Teams having different north stars, running separate roadmaps and disagreeing on where to invest.
Fewer, sharper. Every airline, OTA and vendor has the one thing that sets them apart from their competitors. Chasing every channel, market and segment will end up being a costly distraction.
Product beats price. Whether you're an airline, an OTA or a travel tech vendor, the quality, design and usability of your product will ultimately decide the winner. Competing on price only is not the path to success.
Take the contrarian route. Every new player in the value chain claims it will reinvent flight sales, then ends copying the established model. That has to change and the airlines have a key role to play.
One size fits nobody. A flight is still sold as a “row in a table”. With this many fares and options, it should be put together to match every individual traveller's context. The technology and the data are there. What's missing is the will to put it all together.
How I work
You get me. You'll have me and only me. I'll be hands-on and 100% available during the course of the project or assignment.
I talk to a lot of people. Structured interviews, across teams and levels — and where it helps, with your customers and partners too. Lots of answers are already in and around your company, in pieces, held by different people. My job is to collect them and find the pattern, an opportunity or a risk.
I write everything down. I won't build slides for your board meeting. I will document my findings, my ideas and my plans in a way your team can find and use, any time, without me.
I say the unwelcome thing. Part of what you're paying for is to get opinions even if some of those might not be nice to hear. They will be presented kindly though.
I don't work for your competitor while I work for you. Reflected in the contract, not just in conversation. And we'll agree on those competitors together.
Two ways to hire me
A project. You have a defined problem, a need for an external perspective and a limited amount of time to get it sorted. Priced in days.
Fractional. I work for your company two or three days a week, over an agreed number of consecutive months, for a fixed monthly fee. I run the thing beyond only advising you about it.
There is only one of me. That means I can only take two fractional clients at a time. When I'm not available, I will simply say so.
Where I've been
I spent almost thirty years in flight distribution and have seen it from every side of the table.
Amadeus, twelve of them. flyiin, the flight aggregator I founded in Berlin and spent five years building — the one meant to let airlines sell their own product properly and attractively. Priceline, who bought it, and where I stayed three more years to learn about the OTA flight business. And most recently DerbySoft, which I prepared for becoming a serious player in flight distribution.
My work has been done and delivered in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.
And I wrote a book about building one.
Running your own company means dealing with literally everything. Funding, hiring, salaries, suppliers, product, the customers who nearly signed. There is nobody to pass any of it to. Six years of that leaves you with a view of how every business function actually fits together — the view large companies can't let you see.
That's one part of my experience you can read about. Thirty-odd chapters on what those years taught me, including the parts I got wrong, free at Failure Sucks.
It's also the reason I can more easily identify the many pieces of a problem.
Tell me what's stuck
Tell me what's stuck.
If it's in flight distribution, I've likely seen a version of it. Again, if I'm not the right person, I'll say so.
spingaud@gmail.com · LinkedIn · Milan, Italy
