Product Owner - Flights Experience

📌 Job Description — Product Owner (Flights)

 Position Title: Product Owner – Flights

 Type: Full-Time

Division: Product

Industry: Online Travel / OTA / Travel Technology

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🎯 Role Summary

The Product Owner – Flights is responsible for defining and delivering the end-to-end product strategy for the Flights vertical. The role includes managing airline and GDS integrations, improving search and pricing performance, ensuring high availability and accuracy, and optimizing the booking and post-ticketing experience across all customer segments (B2C and B2B).

The Flights PO works closely with engineers, OTA operations, GDS teams, NDC providers, airlines, payments, and customer support to deliver a seamless, reliable, and high-performing flight booking experience.

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🔑 Key Responsibilities

1. Product Vision & Strategy

• Own the product vision for the flights vertical aligned with the company’s travel strategy.

• Conduct airline market and competitor analysis (pricing, features, ancillaries, UX patterns).

• Identify opportunities to expand airline content sources (GDS, NDC, LCC, consolidators).

• Define long-term direction for search accuracy, performance, ancillaries, and yield optimization.

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2. Product Roadmap & Backlog Management

• Build and manage the Flights Roadmap across Search, Availability, Fares, Ancillaries, Booking, Ticketing, Post-Ticketing, and Operations.

• Prioritize based on business value, operational impact, and technical complexity.

• Create detailed User Stories, epics, and acceptance criteria.

• Lead grooming, sprint planning, and sprint review sessions with engineering teams.

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3. Flights Search & Pricing Performance

• Oversee implementation and optimization of search performance (response times, caching, routing logic).

• Enhance fare accuracy, tax calculations, and re-pricing workflows.

• Monitor fare mapping, de-duplication, and merging logic across multiple suppliers.

• Improve ranking/sorting algorithms for relevance and conversion.

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4. Airline, GDS, & NDC Integrations

• Manage integrations with GDSs (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport), NDC APIs, and LCCs (e.g., Air Arabia, Jazeera, Flynas).

• Ensure high accuracy of availability, schedule changes, and ancillaries.

• Collaborate closely with airline partners to optimize SLAs, reduce errors, and enhance data quality.

• Troubleshoot system issues, inconsistencies, and supplier outages.

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5. Booking, Payment, and Ticketing Workflows

• Own all booking workflows including fare family selection, passenger details, SSR/OSI, seat selection, baggage, meals, and ancillaries.

• Improve payment performance, fraud checks, and 3DS flows for flight transactions.

• Enhance auto-ticketing, queue management, and PNR synchronisation across systems.

• Monitor ticketing success rate, voiding flows, exchanges, and refund processes.

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6. Post-Ticketing Experience (Operations + Customer Care)

• Improve processes for schedule changes, disruption management (IRROPS), re-accommodation, cancellations, refunds, and exchanges.

• Reduce operational load by enhancing automation and workflow tools.

• Collaborate with support teams to identify pain points and resolve root causes.

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7. Data-Driven Decisions & KPI Monitoring

• Own the Flights Funnel: Search → Select → Book → Ticketed.

• Track and improve:

o Search response time & timeout ratio

o Pricing accuracy & ADMs prevention

o Ticketing success rate

o Ancillaries adoption & attach rate

o Availability accuracy across POS

o Payment success rate for flight bookings

• Use analytics dashboards to identify issues, test hypotheses, and define corrective actions.

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8. Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work with Supply/Commercial teams on airline relationships, incentives, and distribution priorities.

• Partner with Finance on yield, markups, margins, and settlement issues.

• Coordinate with Marketing to improve conversion and landing pages.

• Work with UX on flows for search results, fare families, seat maps, ancillaries, and checkout.

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🧩 Skills & Experience Requirements

• 5–7 years experience in OTA, airline tech, GDS/NDC systems, or e-commerce product roles.

• Strong knowledge of GDS (Amadeus/Sabre/Travelport), NDC architecture, LCC APIs, and aviation fare concepts (RBDs, fare families, ATPCO rules).

• Understanding of PNRs, ticketing, queues, void/reissue/refund processes.

• Experience with XML/REST APIs, caching, response-time optimization, and supplier performance management.

• Strong analytical abilities with experience using analytics tools (Looker, Tableau, GA).

• Excellent communication and cross-functional leadership skills.

• Solid understanding of Agile/Scrum and backlog ownership.

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📊 Success Metrics (KPIs)

• Search → Book → Ticketed conversion rate

• Search response time & timeout ratio

• Fare accuracy & re-pricing success rate

• Ticketing success %

• Schedule change handling efficiency

• Ancillaries attach rate

• Cancellation/Refund turnaround time

• Supplier availability & error rates

• Payment success rate for flights

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🚀 Strategic Impact

The Product Owner – Flights plays a central role in building a scalable and competitive flight distribution platform. By improving reliability, accuracy, and customer experience, the role directly strengthens revenue growth, airline partnerships, and the company’s position as a leading travel marketplace in the region.