Air India Express is a low-cost carrier operating across Asia with a fleet of approximately 125 aircraft. Following its merger with AirAsia India, the airline entered a new phase of scale both in terms of fleet size and operational complexity. As ancillary revenue is a critical margin driver for low-cost carriers, Air India Express identified inflight retail and catering operations as a priority area for transformation.

To support this objective, the airline partnered with Forthcode to deploy nGO Inflight Retail and Catering Management across its entire fleet. The engagement focused on resolving long-standing operational inefficiencies, improving inflight sales reliability in low-connectivity environments, and creating a scalable foundation for ancillary revenue growth.

Prior to implementation, Air India Express faced several operational and commercial challenges across its inflight retail ecosystem.

A primary issue was offline payment reliability. Card decline rates were unacceptably high during inflight transactions, particularly on routes with limited or no connectivity. This directly impacted sales completion and crew confidence in the system, leading to missed revenue opportunities.

Inventory reconciliation was another major bottleneck. Manual and semi-automated processes made post-flight inventory matching time-consuming and error-prone. Variances were difficult to track, excess stock was routinely uplifted as a buffer, and wastage increased operating costs.

Additionally, tax calculations for regulatory filing and crew performance-based incentive calculations were cumbersome and delayed. These processes relied on fragmented data sources and manual intervention, increasing the risk of errors and slowing financial close cycles.

Post-merger scale compounded these issues. Managing inflight retail operations consistently across a 100+ aircraft fleet, while optimizing ancillary revenue and maintaining compliance, became increasingly difficult with existing systems.

Air India Express evaluated solutions with a clear focus on execution speed, offline robustness, and operational fit for a large low-cost carrier.

The airline also valued Forthcode’s deep understanding of airline inflight workflows and the practical realities faced by crew, catering teams, and finance stakeholders.

Forthcode implemented nGO Inflight Retail and Catering Management, an end-to-end platform designed to digitize and automate the complete inflight retail lifecycle.

To ensure data consistency across the enterprise, nGO was integrated with:

• Navitaire (PSS) for passenger and flight data
• CAE (CRSS) for crew-related workflows
• SAP (ERP) for finance, accounting, and compliance processes

This created a single source of truth for inflight sales, inventory, tax, and incentive calculations.

The project was delivered within a three-month implementation window, followed by a multi-year commercial engagement.

The rollout was executed fleet-wide using a structured, phased approach to minimize disruption to live operations. A train-the-trainer model was adopted, enabling Air India Express to rapidly scale crew and ground team training while maintaining consistency in usage.

Post go-live, Forthcode deployed on-ground teams to audit operational processes in real time. These audits part of Forthcode’s standard post-implementation methodology helped identify adoption gaps early, validate data accuracy, and fine-tune workflows to match real-world operating conditions.

This hands-on change management approach ensured high adoption across crew, catering teams, finance, and ancillary revenue stakeholders.

Revenue & Financial Impact

• 3x increase in inflight ancillary revenue, driven by higher transaction success rates and improved crew confidence
• Near-elimination of inventory discrepancies, with inventory variance reduced to almost zero
• Faster and more accurate tax calculations, supporting timely regulatory filings

Operational Improvements

• Automated reconciliation significantly reduced manual effort for finance and catering teams
• Accurate, system-driven crew performance bonus calculations, improving transparency and trust
• Reduced over-catering and excess uplift, lowering inventory carrying costs

Passenger & Crew Experience

• More reliable inflight transactions, even in offline conditions
• Faster sales flows, reducing friction during onboard service
• Improved crew engagement through dependable systems and fair incentive calculations

Collectively, these improvements enabled Air India Express to operate its inflight retail program at scale, with greater control, predictability, and profitability.

• Offline-first design is critical for inflight retail success, especially for large low-cost carriers
• End-to-end automation from planning to reconciliation unlocks both revenue growth and cost control
• System integration across PSS, crew systems, and ERP is essential for financial accuracy and compliance
• Strong post-go-live governance and audits accelerate adoption and operational stability

For Air India Express, partnering with Forthcode provided not just a technology platform, but a scalable operational backbone to support ancillary revenue growth in a post-merger, high-growth environment.