Future Travel Experience
12 Jan 2026
The beginning of a new year brings with it an opportunity, coinciding with the recent CES 2026, to take a look at the trends, as well as the new and emerging technologies, which will shape the air transport industry over the next 12 months and beyond. This year, our list features 12 trends that will play a crucial role in improving passenger experiences and enhancing business performance. We explore everything from agentic AI, robotics and automation to biometrics and digital identity, personalisation, immersive technologies, sustainability, and more.
2026 is less about the arrival of entirely new technologies and more about turning existing capabilities into tangible outcomes. It is no longer a question of whether emerging technologies can work in aviation, but how they behave in real-world operations. Across artificial intelligence (AI), automation, robotics, Internet of Things, computer vision, digital identity and autonomous systems, the core capabilities are already proven. The uncertainty has shifted away from technical feasibility – and while the industry is not yet at full-scale, industrialised deployment, the focus is now firmly on operational learning. This means understanding how these technologies perform in live environments, how frontline teams interact with them, how safety, resilience and reliability stand up over time, and how operating models and workflows must evolve to unlock meaningful passenger experience and efficiency gains...
12 tech and CX trends for airlines and airports in 2026 - FTE - 12 Jan 2026
