Op-ed by Paul Bilham, chief commercial officer, Immfly.
Airlines tend to talk about sustainability in terms of big moves — new aircraft, sustainable fuels, and long-term fleet strategy. That’s where the headlines are. But much of the day-to-day impact sits somewhere far less visible: in what gets loaded onto the aircraft, what actually sells, and what gets thrown away a few hours later.
As fuel prices remain volatile and operational costs tighten, these smaller, often overlooked decisions are becoming far more consequential to both cost control and environmental performance.
When fuel prices move, those details start to matter more. A few extra kilos on one flight is irrelevant. The same inefficiency repeated across a short-haul fleet operating multiple sectors a day is not. The uncomfortable truth is that a lot of onboard provisioning still runs on educated guesswork. It’s not that airlines lack data; it’s that they only really see what happened once the flight is over. By then, the decision that mattered has already been made.
Historically, relying on post-flight reporting has meant catering and retail decisions are based more on averages than real passenger behaviour, making it harder to respond in real time.
That lag shows up in predictable ways: Flights where the bestselling items run out early; others where trolleys come back half full. Catering uplifts that drift during the day because nobody fully trusts the numbers. None of it is dramatic; all of it is consistent — and consistency is where the cost sits. In practice, this is where operational efficiency and sustainability intersect. Excess weight increases fuel burn, while unsold stock contributes directly to waste, making them two sides of the same operational issue.
Visibility is what’s changing
What’s starting to shift is the visibility into the cabin. With connected onboard systems, sales and inventory data no longer have to wait until the aircraft is on the ground. They can feed data back during the day, flight by flight. That can give airlines a clearer picture, but that data can also be put to better use. By combining onboard connectivity with digital retail and payment platforms, airlines can begin capturing demand signals as transactions happen, rather than hours later.
Instead of relying on static averages, airlines can begin to use actual demand patterns — what sold on that route yesterday, last week, at that time of day — and adjust accordingly. Not perfectly, and not instantly, but enough to remove the more obvious mismatches. Over time, this allows provisioning to become more dynamic, reflecting route, seasonality, and passenger mix rather than broad assumptions.
The objective is straightforward: fewer flights carrying things that won’t sell, and fewer flights running out of things that would have. This is where better forecasting starts to matter. When real demand data feeds into planning models, provisioning becomes more precise over time. Combining this data with AI-driven forecasting begins to deliver meaningful results.
Where the impact shows up
The impact is operational first: With less excess stock, and more consistent availability of high-demand items. And, critically, less unnecessary weight is carried sector after sector. Multiplied across a fleet, this creates a tangible contribution to an airline’s sustainability goals.
Less weight means less fuel; less unsold food means less waste. And because the changes are tied directly to what is happening on each flight, they can be measured with precision. Reporting requirements are tightening, particularly in Europe, with frameworks such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) placing increasing pressure on airlines to demonstrate measurable operational improvements rather than just long-term commitments.
Being able to evidence reductions in waste and weight — and link them to specific changes in how the operation is run — carries far more credibility than high-level targets.
No step change required
None of this depends on a breakthrough in technology. It is mostly about using better information, faster. Connectivity plays a role, but it does not need to be high speed or passenger-facing to deliver value here. A relatively low-bandwidth setup is enough to move data back to the ground and keep systems aligned. That lowers the barrier to entry, particularly for short-haul fleets where cost and complexity have historically limited adoption.
The harder part is execution. Aligning catering, retail, and operations teams around the same data is not straightforward. But when it does come together, the cabin stops being a blind spot. It becomes part of the same operational loop as the rest of the airline. That alignment also requires closer collaboration between airlines and their service partners, ensuring that data is shared and acted on consistently across the operation.
There’s no single breakthrough, and no moment where sustainability suddenly improves overnight. It is a series of small corrections, applied consistently, across a large number of flights. Airlines cannot control fuel prices or external pressure on sustainability. They can control how precisely they operate – and that is where a meaningful part of the next gains will come from.
As expectations from regulators, investors, and passengers continue to rise, those incremental improvements inside the cabin are becoming one of the most immediate and measurable ways airlines can demonstrate real progress.
Learn more about Immfly at www.immfly.com
