Trust in GenAI Isn’t the Problem. Trust in the Travel Supply Chain Is.

This is the longer version from Linked in.  Are we condemened to burn in Amadeus's hell? Read on. 

Let’s be honest:  We know that many AI projects are failing and failing badly in Travel.  Everyone is whispering about “trust in AI" and GenAI in particular as if the model (and data) hallucinating is the biggest existential threat in travel

It isn’t.

The real trust problem is far more inconvenient: we no longer have reliable, transparent data from the supply chain itself. And GenAI is simply exposing what was already broken.

When You Can’t Trust the Input, You Can’t Trust the Output

Consumers (and frankly, many industry insiders) understand that the supplier’s direct price is the only safe benchmark. Everything else — OTA, meta-search, AI agent — comes with a qualitative risk profile.

And that risk profile just went nuclear.

Because with AI-powered search layered onto NDC fragmentation, we’re no longer talking about “40,000 L2Bs per day.”

We’re talking 400,000+ L2Bs hitting systems — per airline, per market, per channel.

That crush is already distorting results, poisoning transparency, and pushing every player into defensive mode.

The Industry Is Quietly Drowning

Let’s break down where the pain lands:

• OTAs & Metas

  They’ve quietly reduced transparency. Not intentionally malicious — just overwhelmed. The signal-to-noise ratio has collapsed.

• Airlines

  They’re facing a tidal wave of search volume they are contractually obligated to service. Ask any network planning head about the bill they’re expecting from their PSS/GDS partners this year. Watch their eyes twitch.

• Revenue Management & Offer/Order Providers

  Costs are about to spike. Not incrementally — structurally. Complexity is a bill that always comes due.

• We cannot forget ths impact of NDC and its removal of the GDS price guarantee. 

• AI Search & Agents

  They’re generating even more queries, faster, with higher variance. And the systems on the receiving end are nowhere near ready.

This is not a technology problem.

It’s a contractual, economic, and data-governance problem.

The Outcome?

Simple:

Go read your commercial agreements. Then panic.

(not because the sky is falling, but because the invoices soon will)

If you are anywhere in the travel supply chain — airline, OTA, meta, RM provider, NDC aggregator, PSS, GDS, corporate TMC, consolidator — you will feel this.

Hint: you already are.

So What Do We Do?

Four actions, none optional:

1. Put everything under the microscope.

   Every data source, every contract term, every search-servicing clause.

   If you don’t understand the risk exposure, you’re already behind.

2. Collaborate like adults.

   The “everyone optimizes their own slice” era is over.

   If we don’t align, we burn. In Amadeus's hell. 

3. Fix the data. Seriously.

   No GenAI system is better than the mess we’re feeding it.

   Transparency is a team sport — start playing.

4. You also need some help. Give me a call - I can help no matter if you are perp or victim.

Final Word

Trust in GenAI doesn’t begin with the AI. It also doesn't end with Agentic AI

It begins with the humans, systems, and contracts upstream.

If you want to make intelligent decisions in 2025 and beyond, you need someone who actually understands how all these pieces fit together — commercially, technically, and operationally.

Because this wave is coming.

And it’s going to hit hard.