The five patterns I see behind airline data that works — and the road to data independence in aviation.

A free five-day email series for airline data leaders. One pattern per business day.

After that, you'll stay subscribed to my weekly Making Data Work brief — honest takes on what's working inside airline data teams and what the tech trends actually mean for leaders who have to make the call.

Five patterns, one per day

The System Design Pattern

Three departments. Three results. Same airline. When data teams fail, it's almost never a technology problem.

The Shared Definitions Pattern

Good enough satisfies. It also quietly kills. No amount of visualization fixes data you can't trust.

III

The Existing Assets Pattern

The answer to your data problem probably isn't a new platform. Before you buy, look at what you already own.

The Business Ownership Pattern

Your data team spends 80% of its time processing data. Flip it. The organizations that win treat data as a business function, not an IT service.

The Independence Pattern

Own your data layer, own your destiny. Vendor lock-in is the long-term risk nobody prices in.

Ben Becker

I've spent twenty years making data work for airlines — at Continental, United and across a decade of consulting engagements with carriers in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. These five patterns are the ones I've watched separate the commercial data transformations that delivered from the ones that didn't. I wrote this series for the leaders who've invested in data and aren't seeing the returns they expected.