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Airline priorities

2026-02-20 · 08:00 UTC ·Lufthansa Innovation Hub ·14 min read

Brief

Lufthansa Innovation Hub’s analysis argues that airline innovation investing is becoming both rarer and more cautious. Using its six-year tracking of airline-startup deals, the firm finds only 31 airline investment deals in 2025, down from 39 in 2024 and well below the 2018 high-water mark. That decline is notable because it is not simply explained by a weak venture market: the broader corporate venture ecosystem had a record year, with more than 3,000 active corporate investors and $234 billion deployed into startup rounds. In other words, while corporate America and Asia are leaning further into startup exposure, airlines are increasingly standing aside.

Among the few carriers still active, United, IAG, and ANA dominated activity, with United especially signaling a company-wide approach to innovation rather than limiting experimentation to a venture arm. Geographically, the center of gravity is moving east as Asian airlines institutionalize venture investing through vehicles like ANA’s ¥8 billion Future Frontier Fund and IndiGo Ventures’ $52 million fund. Thematically, decarbonization still leads: 42% of airline-backed startups were in sustainability or cleantech, reflecting pressure around SAF scarcity, slow aircraft efficiency gains, and regulation. AI, despite its operational promise in crew scheduling, maintenance, disruption management, and airport automation, represented only about 25% of investments and has not been gaining share. The article’s most important conclusion is that airlines are de-risking rather than exploring: later-stage deals rose from 41% of investments in 2023 to 65% in 2025, implying a bias toward mature, known companies over earlier-stage, more disruptive technologies.

Why it matters

Airline venture activity is shrinking even as corporate venture capital broadly expands.

Key details

  • Airlines completed just 31 startup investment deals in 2025, down from 39 in 2024, the lowest annual total in five years and about one-third below the 2018 peak; only seven airlines were responsible for all 31 deals, and only 7% of IATA-registered airlines have ever made a startup investment.
  • The airline pullback contrasts with the wider CVC market: Global Corporate Venturing says more than 3,000 companies actively invested in startups in 2025, one in five startup rounds included a corporate backer, and corporate capital deployed rose 70% year over year to $234 billion.
  • United Airlines led 2025 airline investing with 10 startup deals, while IAG and All Nippon Airways tied for second with seven each; United also pushed AI beyond operations into marketing, using AI for real-time brand campaigns in September 2025, and moved early on Starlink in-flight connectivity and richer Apple Wallet boarding passes.
  • Airline startup investing is shifting toward Asia: Asian carriers’ share of airline startup deals rose from roughly 15% to more than 30% by 2025; ANA’s 2024 ANA Future Frontier Fund committed about $55 million (¥8 billion), while IndiGo launched India’s first airline CVC with a $52 million inaugural fund and first invested in flight-component manufacturer Jeh Aerospace.
  • Sustainability remained the top investment theme in 2025 at 42% of airline-backed startups, down from 55% in 2024, while AI accounted for about one quarter of backed startups; example AI bets included aiOLA’s $25 million round backed by United and RLWRLD’s $15 million round backed by ANA.
Cleaned source text

title: Airline priorities

author: Lufthansa Innovation Hub

content_type: newsletter

publication: tnmt.com

published: 2026-02-20T08:00:17+00:00

source_url: gmail://19c7a1073df96f29

word_count: 3172

203 - Sustainability. AI. Or something else? | | | Subscribe to our newsletter

Hi there,

Over the past few weeks, we’ve spent a lot of time zooming out on innovation priorities in our sector.

We looked at the _macro forces_ shaping Travel and Mobility Tech in 2025.

We published our _wish list_ for what the industry should fix in 2026.

We philosophized. We hypothesized. We might have used the word “trends” more than once.

Today, we’re doing the opposite.

We’re zooming back in. And this time, fully on airlines.

And no, not by accident.

Airlines are among the most strategically exposed players to disruptive innovation.

Airlines sit right at the intersection of pretty much every uncomfortable innovation challenge you can think of:

Massive capital requirements.

Heavy regulation.

Complex operations.

Rising sustainability pressure.

Shifting distribution power.

And customers who expect Amazon-level experiences at Ryanair-level prices.

No pressure.

Oh, and full disclosure: our parent company happens to be the world’s largest airline group, so yes, we do have a professional (and slightly personal) interest in understanding what’s actually driving the innovation agendas of our peers across the industry.

So today’s research question is pretty simple:

What are airlines really prioritizing when it comes to innovation right now?

To answer that, we’re going back to a research lens we’ve been using (and refining) for years.

Scroll down to learn more.

Enjoy.

Your Lufthansa Innovation Hub Team

Research

Where Are Airlines Placing Their Innovation Bets?

In fact, to our knowledge, TNMT remains the only source that systematically tracks every airline-startup deal at this level of granularity through our _Airline Investment Ranking_.

Our _last annual snapshot_ revealed two important insights:

First, sustainability had emerged as the dominant strategic theme behind airline startup investments.

Second (and more importantly), airline startup investing remained a rare and underutilized innovation tool, despite all the talk about open innovation and the need for technology-driven transformation.

So where does that leave us now?

What does airline startup investing actually look like as we head into 2026?

And how serious are airlines, really, about leveraging startups as part of their long-term innovation strategy?

We took a close look, and what follows is a brutally honest assessment of the current state of airline startup investments.

AIRLINE STARTUP INVESTING IS QUIETLY FADING AWAY

Let’s start with the uncomfortable part.

In 2025, airlines completed only 31 startup investment deals.

That’s down from 39 deals in 2024, marking the lowest annual deal count in five years, and roughly one-third below the airline investment peak in 2018.

On its own, that’s already a worrying signal.

But the picture gets even more concerning when we look at who actually placed those bets.

In 2025, just seven airlines globally were responsible for all 31 startup investments.

Compared to the past two years, that’s another sharp drop, and it means that airline startup investing has become even rarer than before.

Zooming out further, the long-term picture remains extremely pale: Only 7% of IATA-registered airlines worldwide have ever made a startup investment.

In other words, for the vast majority of airlines, startup investing is not a strategic tool. It’s something other industries do.

You might argue that this slowdown is simply a reflection of a broader slowdown in startup investment. The global number of venture capital deals has been declining over the last few years.

But that explanation doesn’t hold when we look at corporate venture capital (CVC).

According to Global Corporate Venturing’s _2026 World of Corporate Venturing report_ , corporate venturing hit a record high in 2025.

More than 3,000 companies were actively investing in startups.

One in five startup funding rounds now includes a corporate backer, and capital deployed into those rounds surged 70% year-over-year to $234 billion USD.

Airlines, however, are largely absent from this picture.

They’re mostly watching from the sidelines.

And that’s the worrying part.

Because startup investments have repeatedly proven to be one of the most effective ways to access emerging technologies, stay close to disruption, and build both strategic and financial upside over time.

At a moment when other industries are doubling down on this instrument, airlines are quietly pulling back.

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE AIRLINES THAT ACTUALLY SHOWED UP

If you’ve been reading TNMT for a while, you know we’ve repeatedly called for more boldness in airline innovation. More commitment. More airlines putting their money where their mouth is...

But enough complaining.

Instead of dwelling on who didn’t invest, let’s flip the mindset.

Because in 2025, seven airlines continued to place startup bets, and that deserves attention.

When we rank these seven airlines by the number of startup deals they closed last year, three carriers stand out:

United Airlines led the field with 10 startup investments.

IAG and All Nippon Airways followed closely, tied for second place with seven deals each.

United Airlines’ top position in the 2025 startup investment ranking is no coincidence.

Over the past year, United has repeatedly signaled that innovation for the airline isn’t confined to a single function (or a single vehicle like venture investing) but spans the entire organization.

Take marketing, for example.

In September 2025, United made headlines for using AI to orchestrate real-time, culturally relevant _brand campaigns_.

Instead of planning static marketing calendars weeks in advance, the airline applied AI to detect moments in the news cycle or broader public discourse and dynamically deploy messaging aligned with them.

This was a strong signal that AI at United is moving beyond the usual airline domains of operations, pricing, or customer service and into brand and narrative control.

The same pattern shows up in the passenger experience.

United was among the _early adopters of Starlink_ for in-flight connectivity, betting on LEO satellite technology well before it became the industry standard.

And on the ground, United has also been at the forefront of _Apple Wallet boarding pass enhancements_, enabling richer, real-time flight updates directly within passengers’ digital wallets.

But zooming back out to all seven airlines that placed startup bets in 2025, the obvious next question is: