UATP Airline Distribution 2026: DAY ONE

In this latest edition of ABNcast we look forward to this year’s T2RLEngage conference with Bert Craven, Deputy Chief Executive and President, Technology, and Ian Luck, President, Distribution at T2RL. ABN is once again a media partner for the event that will see around 600 delegates meet to discuss airline transition to modern retail, payments, and distribution.

In this special episode of ABNcast recorded at the Passenger Experience Conference in Hamburg, ABN's Lee Hayhurst spoke to three delegates about the key trends they are seeing in the world of airline passenger experience.

This episode of ABNcast was recorded at the annual Airline & Travel Payments Summit Mega Event in Dublin. We speak to Micheal Smith, from the conference organiser Ai Events, industry retail and technology expert Mark Lenehan, founder of Lenehan Consulting, and Risto Savolainen, founder of Maxa Group, that is pioneering new online payments technology.

Global OTA Trip.com hosted its first Airline Global Conference in Amsterdam this week, the first outside of its home territory in the Far East. ABNcast was invited along to hear the latest thinking on how airlines will partner and co-create technology platforms fir for the era of Artificial Intelligence and Agentic Commerce. In this episode we speak to Trip.com, Amadeus, IATA, and Lufthansa.

Aviation Business News attended the Aerospace Wales Expo 2026 in Llandudno last week which showcased some of the country’s leading aerospace companies and the value they represent to the Welsh economy in terms of jobs and tax revenues. In this specially extended edition of ABNcast we speak to Rachael Blackburn, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Aerospace Wales, Dave Cooper, Managing Director of Tarvin Precision, Stephen Beasley, Chief Executive of Metrology Engineering Services, and Professor Robert Bolam, Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Wrexham University.

In this episode of ABNcast we caught up with UATP president and chief executive Ralph Kaiser, and Chief Marketing Officer Wendy Ward, immediately after this year's conference concluded to take stock on what was a busy two days focussing on the future of payments and distribution as the world accelerates into a future dominated by AI and agentic technologies.

With the Aircraft Interiors Expo poised to reach the landmark of 25 editions this year, ABN's Lee Hayhurst spoke to event direct Archana Dharni about the world's leading cabin trade show ahead of delegates convening in Hamburg for this year's event.

Last week's UATP Airline Distribution conference in Barcelona saw 300 airline, payments, and technology delegates gather to discuss the future of distribution, retail, and airline ecommerce. In this Day 2 episode of ABNcast we talk to Affirm, Virgin Atlantic, Kyte and The 30 Percent Group about how airlines and their tech partners are navigating disruption and change in the era of AI and agentic commerce.

This week's UATP Airline Distribution conference in Barcelona saw 300 airline, payments, and technology delegates gather to discuss the future of distribution, retail, and airline ecommerce. In this Day 1 episode of ABNcast we talk to three innovators; split payments company Hands In, AI tech specialist Mobi and payment IT Pioneer Burbank Software.