Travel Tech Podcast

The Day We Killed the Date Picker

What if the AI moment in travel is less about building a better OTA, and more about making the OTA unnecessary? Christopher Olivares is the solo founder of Elyo (elyo.io [https://elyo.io/?ref=travel-tech-podcast&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast]), a conversational AI travel assistant that helps travelers find the cheapest flights across flexible destinations and dates, with no commissions, intermediaries, or date pickers. In this episode, Christopher traces his path from OECD policy analyst and expat traveler to vibe-coded solopreneur, and explains how generative AI unlocked both the product idea and the ability to build it without a technical background. The conversation covers the incentive problems embedded in OTAs, the economics of airline distribution, the future of travel discovery, and why AI may finally enable a return to genuinely traveler-first service. What You'll Learn * Traveler intent vs. traveler input: Elyo is built around decomposing what a traveler wants (cheapest meeting point, most flexible weekend, best value destination) rather than the rigid inputs legacy search UIs require. * The OTA commission problem: Using a "free" platform isn't free. Commissions get reflected in prices, and the traveler absorbs costs they never see. * Freemium as a trust mechanism: Elyo's subscription model exists specifically so the platform doesn't have to earn commissions, which keeps the traveler's interest as the unconditional North Star. * AI as a leveler for solo founders: Christopher built Elyo without any prior coding experience, using LLMs both to imagine the product and to build it, illustrating a real shift in who can launch a technical startup. * GDS access is getting harder for startups: At least one major GDS has closed its developer portal, raising barriers for early-stage builders trying to validate ideas before committing to full commercialization. * The seller-of-record problem: Many white-label distribution APIs make startups the seller of record for tickets, a liability that most early-stage founders (Elyo included) want no part of. * AI as a return to the travel agent era: By removing the human cost of advisory, AI can deliver the personalization of pre-internet travel agents alongside the price transparency the metasearch era created, without the commission layer. * Corporate travel is an underserved use case: The remote-team "where should we rendezvous?" problem is a direct extension of Elyo's core optimization, and today's corporate booking platforms remain shockingly poor on UX. Time-Stamped Highlights * (00:00) Introduction and episode overview * (00:01:14) Christopher's background: diplomacy, teaching English in Japan and Spain, and the OECD * (00:04:26) The data standards challenge: why counting schools is harder than it sounds * (00:07:05) The original idea: meeting friends in a cheap third city * (00:10:34) Why generative AI unlocked both the product concept and the build * (00:14:19) Elyo: what it is, how it works, and why the date picker had to die * (00:24:12) The traveler-first business model: freemium, no commissions, direct airline links * (00:32:07) Navigating airline distribution: GDSs, NDC, white-label APIs, and the seller-of-record problem * (00:37:45) Incentive structures in travel: why "free" platforms aren't free * (00:40:01) The AI moment in travel distribution: OTA integrations into chat services * (00:44:45) Corporate travel and the remote-team rendezvous use case * (00:45:51) The return of the travel agent: personalization plus democratization * (00:48:12) Early adopters, honest pricing, and what's coming next for Elyo * (00:47:37) Where to find Elyo and the origin of the name Guest Bio Christopher Olivares is the solo founder of Elyo, a conversational AI travel assistant. Before launching Elyo, he spent four and a half years at the OECD in Paris working on internal ethics, education policy, and international statistical indicators, and is currently completing an executive master's in statistics and artificial intelligence at Université Paris Dauphine. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-olivares-40b8b283/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-olivares-40b8b283/] Elyo: https://elyo.io/?ref=travel-tech-podcast&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast [https://elyo.io/?ref=travel-tech-podcast&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast]  About the Podcast The Travel Tech Podcast features long-form conversations with leaders across travel and technology, exploring how software, data, operations, and distribution come together in real businesses, with an emphasis on tradeoffs, incentives, and lessons that transfer beyond any single company or role. Host Bio Alex Brooker is the founder of Airside Labs, an AI business that applies aviation-grade testing and compliance rigor to building enterprise AI systems. Before founding Airside Labs, he built and scaled complex software in aviation and safety-critical domains. He also invests in early-stage technology ventures and advocates for thoughtful, real-world AI deployment strategies. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/]

50 Years of tech debt, AI enters the chat

Airline distribution is sitting on decades of tech debt and AI might be the only thing that can fix it. Jim Hetzel is a travel and airline technology veteran who now leads retailing strategy at TWAI. In this conversation, he traces the full arc of airline distribution from fragmented pre-GDS ticketing to the NDC standards work and makes the case that AI is positioned to become the new orchestration layer the industry desperately needs. The discussion also explores the trust problem that no one in the AI agent era has solved yet: who plays the role of IATA when billions of bots are buying plane tickets? What You'll Learn * GDS origin: The Global Distribution System was built to solve a fragmentation problem giving travel sellers a single electronic marketplace instead of supplier-by-supplier chaos. * NDC's limits: NDC is a messaging standard, not a retailing platform; airlines that want to become true retailers still need massive investments in CRM, personalization, and revenue management. * Standards incompatibility: NDC versions are not backwards compatible with each other, which means early adopters face millions of dollars in re-implementation costs every major release cycle. * AI as normalizer: AI can sit on top of both legacy GDS infrastructure and modern NDC standards simultaneously, acting as an intelligent interpreter rather than waiting for the industry to agree on a single format. * Bot demand risk: AI shopping agents never stop checking, unlike human travelers, which means airline systems could face look-to-book ratios of one million to one, infrastructure costs that dwarf current GDS fees. * Trust gap: IATA's historic role was to certify agents and airlines as legitimate counterparties; no equivalent trust and authentication layer exists yet for machine-to-machine AI agent transactions. * Fare calculation art: Even today, skilled international pricing specialists can find fare combinations that GDS pricing engines miss and that variability, tolerance for imprecision, is baked into the industry by design. * Intermediaries survive: AI doesn't kill intermediaries wholesale; it kills the weak ones. The players who solve orchestration, trust, and content normalization at scale will define the next generation of distribution. Time-Stamped Highlights * (00:00) Introduction and episode framing * (00:21) Distribution before computers: fragmentation and the pre-GDS world * (03:04) How the GDS created an electronic marketplace buffer * (04:11) NDC: messaging standard vs. retailing platform * (09:59) Why backwards incompatibility made NDC costly for early adopters * (12:17) "A dumpster fire": the current state of airline distribution standards * (15:25) Travel agencies caught supporting both GDS and NDC simultaneously * (17:22) AI as the normalization layer across incompatible standards * (22:21) Bot demand: look-to-book ratios and machine-generated traffic at scale * (23:55) IATA's dual trust role and why AI agents have no equivalent * (35:05) GDS pricing discrepancies: three systems, same itinerary, different fares * (38:39) The "art" of international fare calculation and AI's opportunity there * (40:25) Who builds the next trust and orchestration layer? * (45:53) TWAI: modern retailing across GDS, NDC, and non-air content today Guest Bio Jim Hetzel is a travel and airline technology executive with a career spanning corporate travel agencies to enterprise distribution platforms. He currently works at TWAI, a travel retailing technology company that enables airlines and travel sellers to offer multi-source content: GDS, NDC, hotels, car rental, activities through a unified platform. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhetzel/ | Company: https://twai.com About the Podcast The Travel Tech Podcast features long-form conversations with leaders across travel and technology. The show explores how software, data, operations, and distribution come together in real businesses, with an emphasis on tradeoffs, incentives, and lessons that transfer beyond any single company or role. Host Bio Alex Brooker is the founder of Airside Labs, an AI business that applies aviation-grade testing and compliance rigor to enterprise AI systems. Before founding Airside Labs, Alex built and scaled complex software in aviation and safety-critical domains. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/ | Company: https://airsidelabs.com tkVDKZ6VNIo9a6ml0xrc

Fix the Data First: A Contrarian's Guide to AI in Hospitality

Hotels are sitting on millions in uncollected revenue and corrupted content and most of them don't even know it. Fred Bean is the founder of HotelPORT, a hospitality content governance and distribution technology company he launched in 2019 after three decades working across hotel reservations, GDS connectivity, and online distribution. His career spans roles at Hyatt, Sabre, and TravelWeb, where he helped build foundational infrastructure for hotel bookings online.  This conversation covers the persistent structural problems in hotel distribution from inaccurate third-party content and uncollected OTA payments to the misapplication of AI and how governed data is the prerequisite for every meaningful technology deployment in hospitality. What You'll Learn * Variable Net Rates: The mechanism that allowed hotels to revenue-manage against net rates after 9/11 — locking in OTA margins while letting room rates float with demand — was pioneered at TravelWeb in 2002 and became an industry standard adopted by every major distribution player. * Content Governance: Inaccurate hotel content on third-party channels is not an edge case — it is the norm, affecting even hotels with active distribution connectivity, and the downstream impact on bookings and guest experience is systematically underestimated. * Revenue Leakage: An audit across 2,000 hotels found $7 million in uncollected OTA virtual credit card payments, with over $500,000 already expired… a direct result of resource constraints at property level, not negligence. * AI Prerequisite: AI deployed on top of ungoverned data will hallucinate and erode guest trust; the correct sequence is governance first, activation second: verify the source of truth before connecting any AI-facing interface. * Distribution Expertise Decline: Institutional knowledge of how hotel distribution systems interconnect is eroding as experienced practitioners retire without adequate replacements, creating an industry-wide vulnerability that neither software nor AI can currently compensate for. * Channel Misalignment: Digital marketing and distribution teams within hotels frequently operate without visibility into each other's decisions: resulting in spend on paid search during periods of zero availability, a problem that requires internal alignment before technology can solve it. * Generational Engagement Shift: Voice, text, and chat AI are not competing formats: they serve different traveler cohorts simultaneously, and hospitality operators need human off-ramps in AI voice flows and multi-channel support to avoid alienating any segment. * OTA Consolidation Risk: The consolidation of major OTAs into a few parent companies has created an illusion of channel choice for consumers, reducing competitive pressure on incumbents and opening genuine opportunity for startups that solve problems the big platforms have deprioritized. Time-Stamped Highlights * (00:00) Introduction — Why a Call Center in Omaha Started a 30-Year Career * (01:10) From Reservation Agent to Distribution Architect at Hyatt and Sabre * (02:58) Building the First Internet-Bookable Hotel Reservations in the Late 1990s * (08:10) Inventing Variable Net Rates: How Hotels Took Back Margin from OTAs Post-9/11 * (11:25) Data at Scale: Why More Channels Has Made Content Accuracy Worse, Not Better * (15:00) The Long Tail Problem: How Smaller Hotels Get Overwhelmed and Where They Fall Short * (20:35) AI Skepticism Grounded in Experience: Dot-Com Parallels and the Pets.com Generation * (30:11) Governance Before Activation: The Two-Step Framework for Responsible AI Deployment in Hotels * (36:12) PropertyView and the $7 Million Discovery: Auditing Revenue Leakage Across 2,000 Hotels * (42:20) Engage: Voice, Text, and Chat AI Powered by Verified Hospitality Data * (45:30) Generational Divergence in Guest Communication: Designing for All Three Cohorts * (50:00) OTA Consolidation, Fake Hotel Websites, and the Fraud Problem AI Is Making Worse * (55:00) Where Startups Can Still Win: Packaging, Event Travel, and Value-Based Selling * (58:30) The BIG Foundation: Teaching Food-Insecure Youth to Cook as a Pathway into Hospitality Guest Bio Fred Bean is the Founder and CEO of HotelPORT, a hospitality content governance platform he launched in 2019 after 30 years working in hotel reservations, GDS connectivity, and distribution technology at companies including Hyatt, Sabre, and TravelWeb, where he co-developed the variable net rate model adopted across the industry. He also founded the BIG Foundation, a Miami-based initiative addressing food insecurity among hospitality-industry families by giving students culinary skills and a pathway into the workforce. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredbean/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredbean/]   |   Company: https://hotelport.comhotelport.com [http://hotelport.com]   |   Foundation: https://bigfoundation.net/ [https://bigfoundation.net/] About the Podcast The Travel Tech Podcast features long form conversations with leaders across travel and technology. The show explores how software, data, operations, and distribution come together in real businesses, with an emphasis on tradeoffs, incentives, and lessons that transfer beyond any single company or role. Host Alex Brooker — Founder, Airside Labs Alex is an engineer, technology leader, and founder with deep expertise in mission-critical systems and AI oversight. He leads Airside Labs, an AI business that applies aviation-grade testing and compliance rigor to enterprise AI systems, helping organizations build and test AI agents in regulated environments. Before founding Airside Labs, Alex built and scaled complex software in aviation and safety-critical domains, blending product innovation with disciplined engineering practices. He also invests in early-stage technology ventures and advocates for thoughtful, real-world AI deployment strategies. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/] 🔍 Explore 6,500+ Aviation AI Use Cases. We've catalogued over 6,500 real AI applications across airlines, airports, ATM, MRO, and more into an interactive browser. Filter by sector and see where AI is actually being deployed across aviation: airsidelabs.com/aviation-use-cases [http://airsidelabs.com/aviation-use-cases?utm_source=show_notes&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=travel_tech_podcast] Brought To You By Airside Labs — Airside Labs supports aviation and travel operators with tools to test, deploy, and scale modern data and AI systems in safety-critical environments. Learn more at https://airsidelabs.com [https://airsidelabs.com/].

Zero-Days, Superintelligence, and the Collapse of Software Assumptions

AI is rapidly changing the economics of software: code is cheaper to generate than ever, but significantly harder to reason about, validate, and secure. As systems become more automated, the real constraint is no longer building functionality, it’s maintaining confidence in what those systems will actually do once deployed. To unpack this shift, Alex Brooker is joined by Jen Reid-Schram, an AI practitioner and former VP of Technology with deep roots in QA, engineering leadership, and executive transformation. Jen brings a systems-level view of how quality thinking evolved inside engineering teams—and why it may need to re-emerge in a new form as AI reshapes how software is produced. She’s joined by Oli Deakin, former CTO of Snowflake Software and ex-technology leader at Cirium, who brings hands-on experience building and operating complex technical systems in aviation and enterprise environments. Together, they explore how AI is redefining QA, amplifying security risk, and forcing a rethink of what “good software” even means in an era of superhuman code generation. What You’ll Learn * QA is fundamentally about translating intent into system behavior * “Shift-left” eliminated QA as a team, but not as a need * AI reduces the cost of writing code, not verifying it * Spec-driven development is becoming a primary control mechanism * Engineering is shifting from writing code to defining behavior * QA thinking is rooted in empathy and adversarial reasoning * AI amplifies both productivity and systemic risk simultaneously * Zero-day vulnerabilities highlight unknown risks in software systems * CVE management remains a high-stakes tradeoff * AI adoption is reshaping incentives between productivity and burnout * Security and QA are converging again under AI-driven development Time-Stamped Highlights * (00:11) AI focus and recent industry developments * (01:38) The evolving role of QA engineers * (02:19) Jen’s start in QA and early tech career * (03:01) Defining the QA “quality mindset” * (03:23) Shift-left development model explained * (04:17) Erosion of standalone QA teams * (05:57) Core traits of effective QA thinking * (08:27) AI and the return of test-driven development * (10:30) Spec-driven development in AI workflows * (11:50) AI as a leveling force across roles * (14:28) Mythos, superintelligence, and AI risk discussion * (18:11) Zero-day vulnerabilities explained in context  Guests Jen Reid-Schram — AI Practitioner, Former VP of Technology, Founder of Level Up Experience Jen is a technology leader with deep experience in QA, engineering leadership, and executive transformation. She now focuses on helping organizations adopt AI through hands-on training, bridging the gap between technical capability and operational understanding. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-reid-schram [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-reid-schram] Company: https://www.levelup-experience.com [https://www.levelup-experience.com/] Oliver Deakin — Fractional CTO, Advisor and previously Technology Leader at Cirium, Former Snowflake Software CTO, and Senior Engineer at IBM Oliver has served in senior technical leadership roles, including as CTO at Snowflake Software during its rise in aviation data solutions. He has deep practical experience with software architecture, developer tooling, and emerging technologies applied to complex domains like travel and real-time data systems. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olideakin/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/olideakin/] About the Podcast The Travel Tech Podcast features long form conversations with leaders across travel and technology. The show explores how software, data, operations, and distribution come together in real businesses, with an emphasis on tradeoffs, incentives, and lessons that transfer beyond any single company or role. Host Alex Brooker — Founder, Airside Labs Alex is an engineer, technology leader, and founder with deep expertise in mission-critical systems and AI oversight. He leads Airside Labs, an AI business that applies aviation-grade testing and compliance rigor to enterprise AI systems, helping organizations build and test AI agents in regulated environments. Before founding Airside Labs, Alex built and scaled complex software in aviation and safety-critical domains, blending product innovation with disciplined engineering practices. He also invests in early-stage technology ventures and advocates for thoughtful, real-world AI deployment strategies. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/] 🔍 Explore 6,500+ Aviation AI Use Cases. We've catalogued over 6,500 real AI applications across airlines, airports, ATM, MRO, and more into an interactive browser. Filter by sector and see where AI is actually being deployed across aviation: airsidelabs.com/aviation-use-cases [http://airsidelabs.com/aviation-use-cases?utm_source=show_notes&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=travel_tech_podcast] Brought To You By Airside Labs — Airside Labs supports aviation and travel operators with tools to test, deploy, and scale modern data and AI systems in safety-critical environments. Learn more at https://airsidelabs.com [https://airsidelabs.com/].

The 5-Minute Build That Breaks Traditional Travel Tech

For decades, building a travel business meant stitching together fragmented supply: GDS systems, hotel APIs, pricing layers, and fulfillment infrastructure. It was complex, expensive, and slow to scale. Now, that’s changing fast. With the rise of AI agents and MCP-powered infrastructure, what once took years of engineering can now be deployed in minutes—fundamentally shifting who can participate in the travel ecosystem, and how distribution works. Mike Putman, CEO and Founder of Custom Travel Solutions, has been at the center of this evolution—from launching one of the earliest online travel agencies in the mid-90s to building the infrastructure powering modern AI-driven booking systems. This episode explores how travel distribution is being rebuilt, why agents—not brands—may control the customer relationship, and what it means when any company can become a travel seller overnight. What You’ll Learn * Building a travel booking engine has gone from multi-year projects to minutes with AI agents * The real complexity in travel isn’t search—it’s data normalization, deduplication, and pricing logic * Agentic AI shifts power away from brands toward personalized user-controlled experiences * Loyalty programs may weaken as agents optimize for outcomes, not brand preference * The “last mile” problems—like booking failures at hotels—still cost the industry ~2% of transactions * AI can now solve operational gaps (like reconfirmation) that were previously too expensive to fix with humans * Travel distribution is becoming infrastructure-first, where aggregation layers power entire ecosystems * In the future, agents may transact directly with other agents, reshaping how commerce works Time-Stamped Highlights * (01:03) Early Days of Online Travel  * (01:55) Evolution of Travel Technology  * (03:11) Launch of 11th Hour Vacations  * (04:10) Gaining First Customers  * (06:03) Pre-Google Search Engines  * (07:02) Partnership with Lastminute.com  * (09:18) Amadeus Acquisition and OneTravel  * (10:19) How Custom Travel Solutions Works  * (14:34) Lessons from Previous Ventures  * (16:20) Scaling Challenges  * (18:23) AI in Travel Industry  * (32:39) Future of Agentic AI in Travel  Guest Mike Putman — CEO & Founder, Custom Travel Solutions Mike Putman is a travel industry veteran with over four decades of experience across distribution and technology. He founded one of the earliest online travel agencies in the 1990s and has since worked with major global travel brands. Today, he leads Custom Travel Solutions, building infrastructure that powers modern travel booking, including AI-driven aggregation, agentic APIs, and back-office automation tools. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeputman/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeputman/] Company: https://customtravelsolutions.com [https://customtravelsolutions.com/] Routestack: Routestack.ai [http://routestack.ai] About the Podcast The Travel Tech Podcast features long form conversations with leaders across travel and technology. The show explores how software, data, operations, and distribution come together in real businesses, with an emphasis on tradeoffs, incentives, and lessons that transfer beyond any single company or role. Host Alex Brooker — Founder, Airside Labs Alex is an engineer, technology leader, and founder with deep expertise in mission-critical systems and AI oversight. He leads Airside Labs, an AI business that applies aviation-grade testing and compliance rigor to enterprise AI systems, helping organizations build and test AI agents in regulated environments. Before founding Airside Labs, Alex built and scaled complex software in aviation and safety-critical domains, blending product innovation with disciplined engineering practices. He also invests in early-stage technology ventures and advocates for thoughtful, real-world AI deployment strategies. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/] 🔍 Explore 6,500+ Aviation AI Use Cases. We've catalogued over 6,500 real AI applications across airlines, airports, ATM, MRO, and more into an interactive browser. Filter by sector and see where AI is actually being deployed across aviation: airsidelabs.com/aviation-use-cases [http://airsidelabs.com/aviation-use-cases?utm_source=show_notes&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=travel_tech_podcast] Brought To You By Airside Labs — Airside Labs supports aviation and travel operators with tools to test, deploy, and scale modern data and AI systems in safety-critical environments. Learn more at https://airsidelabs.com [https://airsidelabs.com/].