Held earlier this year, the 2025 edition of Actuary.aero brought together leaders in aviation payments, airline technology and retailing to tackle a growing challenge: how can airlines modernise their payment systems to keep up with global expansion, customer demands and rising regulatory pressure?
Branchspace’s Principal Consultant Mathieu Tahon joined the conversation, both as a speaker and as an active voice in many side discussions across the conference floor. Mathieu has over 12 years of experience working in airline payments, distribution, and digital transformation. At Branchspace, he’s supported major carriers like British Airways, Brussels Airlines, and Lufthansa Group, building on his earlier work leading innovation projects such as Amadeus Airport Pay
Here are the key themes and takeaways from the event, shaped by Mathieu’s own experience and the insights.
Payments at the centre of airline retailing
Across multiple talks and panel discussions, a recurring message emerged: payments are no longer just a backend process. They’re a central pillar of the airline retailing experience.
From emerging BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) options to shifts in consumer payment preferences across regions, airlines need to respond faster than ever. Mathieu echoed this in his Future Picks interview, noting that while airlines are rapidly embracing retail thinking, many are still bottlenecked by fragmented or legacy payment infrastructure. Speaking on some of the payment issues, like provider downtimes, he noted:
“It's happening so often. Like when you look at even some of our clients, they really report downtime issues like maybe multiple hours of downtime. You cannot sell tickets. It's a big loss"
Beyond the payment gateway: The rise of orchestration
In his presentation, Mathieu shared a fictional case study of "BranchAir". It’s a growing airline, navigating expansion into multiple markets and struggling with PSP fragmentation, high fees and delays in deploying new payment methods.
This led to a key solution discussed throughout the conference about Payment Orchestration Platforms (POPs). These platforms were a hot topic at Actuary.aero, touted for its ability to unify different payment streams, streamline integration and introduce fallback mechanisms for system resilience.
Mathieu reinforced this with real-world examples from his consulting work at Branchspace, including the multi-brand payment architecture strategy designed for the International Airlines Group (IAG).
Trust, tokenisation and passenger expectations
Another topic of discussion was the growing need for tokenisation and customer-centric security. Not only to reduce PCI-DSS scope (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) but to create smoother, personalised journeys.
Mathieu shared how tokenisation enables persistent preferences and faster checkout across channels, improving the overall digital experience. He also pointed out that tokenisation assists with decreasing the time spent on audits while enabling quicker development times.
Key takeaways for airline leaders
Here’s what we’re walking away with from Actuary.aero 2025:
- Payment transformation is no longer optional and is foundational to digital retailing.
- Tokenisation, orchestration and fallback capabilities are becoming table stakes.
- Architecture must be designed for scale, multi-brand use and resilience.
- Strategic payment design should start early, not after tech decision are already locked in.
Where Branchspace fits in
At Branchspace, we help airlines rethink their airline technology stacks. From customer experience to payments. Whether you're exploring orchestration, building a payments strategy, or aligning your Offer & Order journey, we support you with both deep airline expertise and agile consulting delivery.
Catch the full conversation with Mathieu on the Future Picks podcast
Or reach out to us to learn more about transforming your airline’s payment architecture.
