March 2026: The Month Agentic Travel Will get Actual | Future of Travel

Some months, the innovation sign is scattered. This will not be a type of months. Welcome to the March 2026 version of the OAG Airline Tech Innovation Radar, the place the dialog in journey tech is dominated by a single phrase: agentic.

In the previous few weeks, three bulletins landed that, taken collectively, recommend agentic AI in journey has crossed a threshold. Agentic is now not an idea deck at travel-tech conferences. Actual infrastructure, precise deployments, and precise partnerships are coming collectively, connecting actual vacationers, actual stock, and actual funds.

This issues within the context of the place we left issues in our January radar, the place we reviewed 2025 and concluded that distribution stays the class the place probably the most consequential travel-tech innovation is occurring. The three improvements we spotlight this month reinforce that conclusion and sharpen it.

Key abstract:

• Sabre, PayPal, and ThoughtsTrip are constructing the journey business’s first end-to-end agentic AI reserving pipeline, combining conversational AI journey planning, real-time journey stock (420+ airways, 2M accommodations), and built-in cost right into a single chat-based expertise—doubtlessly redefining how journey is found, booked, and paid for when it launches in Q2 2026.
• Malaysia Airlines launched “Mavis,” an agentic AI customer support agent, constructed on Ada’s ACX platform, that autonomously handles journey queries and reserving duties throughout net, app, and electronic mail—marking a shift from primary chatbots to AI brokers that may act on actual airline techniques.
• Skyscanner launched a ChatGPT app that lets customers seek for flights by way of pure language inside ChatGPT, signaling a shift from conventional form-based metasearch to conversational journey discovery.

Innovation #1: Sabre, PayPal, and ThoughtsTrip Build the First End-to-End Agentic Booking Pipeline

There has been a lot discuss agentic AI in journey the previous few weeks and months, however as Filip Filipov (CEO at OAG), rightfully concluded in his Signals & Systems Newsletter on the finish of final 12 months:

Our business is happy about AI, however we nonetheless lack a robust imaginative and prescient for what the patron journey expertise ought to change into. We’ve obtained demos, experiments, and prototypes. What we do not have is a North Star, a compelling argument for a way, on this cycle, the client expertise will evolve. And this issues, as a result of with out a imaginative and prescient for the entrance finish, we will not construct the correct again finish and infrastructure.

The core problem to this point is that this: no single participant within the journey stack owns the complete chain.

• You want content material (flights, accommodations)
• You want intelligence (conversational AI that understands traveler intent)
• And you want commerce (a method to truly pay). 

Until now, these items have existed in separate silos. On February 12, Sabre, PayPal, and ThoughtsTrip announced a partnership that doubtlessly connects all three into what they describe because the journey business’s first end-to-end agentic AI reserving system, with a deliberate launch in Q2 2026. It is likely to be the agentic North Star our business has been ready for.

Here’s the way it’s speculated to work:

• A traveler describes their journey in pure language by way of ThoughtsTrip’s conversational AI interface.
• MindTrip queries Sabre’s Mosaic APIs, which give entry to greater than 420 airways and two million lodge properties worldwide.
• The AI presents curated, customized choices primarily based on traveler preferences, context, and availability.
• PayPal’s agentic commerce infrastructure handles cost throughout the conversational stream, finishing your entire search-book-pay loop with out the traveler ever leaving the dialog.

Why does this innovation stand out?

Two issues make this partnership so important.

First, it goals to resolve the combination downside. The journey business has seen loads of AI chatbots that may discuss journey, and loads of reserving engines that may course of transactions. But connecting real-time GDS stock, conversational AI, and cost right into a single, seamless pipeline is new. Importantly, this isn’t a demo or a prototype. Sabre is placing its full Mosaic content material library behind this, and PayPal is deploying its agentic commerce stack (a system designed particularly for AI-to-system transactions).

Second, this partnership alerts a structural shift in who controls the reserving funnel. Traditionally, that has been the area of OTAs, airline direct channels, and metasearch. If a conversational AI agent can deal with discovery, comparability, and buy in a single interplay, the function of conventional reserving interfaces adjustments essentially. The actual query is whether or not shoppers will belief an AI to pick, e-book, and pay on their behalf (which they currently don’t). If they do, any such built-in pipeline might change into the default structure for agentic journey commerce.

Sabre’s involvement is price noting. We featured Sabre in our November 2025 version for its AI-enhanced steady pricing engine, which optimizes the again finish. The PayPal-ThoughtsTrip collaboration is about reimagining the entrance finish. Together, they paint an image of a GDS supplier positioning itself as core infrastructure for the AI period.

Innovation #2: Malaysia Airlines Launches Mavis, an Agentic AI Customer Service Agent

While the Sabre-PayPal-ThoughtsTrip partnership focuses on the reserving facet of the traveler journey, Malaysia Airlines is making use of agentic AI to a special problem: customer support. On February 24, the airline launched Mavis, an AI-powered customer support agent constructed on Ada’s Agentic Customer Experience (ACX) platform. Mavis is now reside throughout the airline’s net, cell app, and electronic mail channels.

Here’s the way it works:

• Mavis handles a variety of traveler queries: flight standing, reserving administration, check-in help, gate data, and loyalty program questions. 
• The system offers 24/7 assist in English and Malay, with further languages deliberate.
• Complex points are escalated to reside brokers. Future enhancements embody voice, agent-assist instruments, and an itinerary builder.

Why does this innovation stand out?

The key phrase in Ada’s positioning is, anticipate it, agentic, as a result of Mavis will not be a standard chatbot (like nearly any airline has launched over the previous two years) that quotes the service’s FAQ web page. Mavis is designed to really resolve points autonomously (the definition of agentic) by integrating straight with Malaysia Airlines’ operational techniques.

It’s speculated to examine an actual reserving, present an actual gate quantity, and help with actual check-in processes.

In concept, this marks the long-awaited shift from chatbots that deflect to AI brokers that act.

What makes Mavis notably noteworthy is its geographic context.

• Much of the airline AI innovation we now have tracked on this Airline-Tech radar has come from US and European carriers. 
• Malaysia Airlines, as a significant Southeast Asian flag service, adopting an agentic AI platform alerts that this expertise goes international.
• Bryan Foong, CEO of Airline Business at Malaysia Aviation Group, described the launch as central to the airline’s broader digital transformation technique.

The trajectory right here issues. We featured Delta’s AI Concierge in February 2025 and Qatar Airways’ Sama AI enhancement in March 2025. Mavis represents the following wave: carrier-owned AI brokers powered by specialised third-party platforms, deployed as core customer support infrastructure.

Innovation #3: Skyscanner Launches a Dedicated ChatGPT App for Flight Search

If Innovation #1 reveals how the infrastructure for agentic reserving is being constructed, and Innovation #2 reveals how airways are beginning to deploy agentic AI for customer support, Innovation #3 alerts how a longtime metasearch participant is adapting to the brand new AI period, and it connects on to one among our 10 Bets for AI in Travel: that scale will stay the decisive benefit, and that AI will favour incumbents over startups.

Skyscanner will not be a scrappy challenger anymore, attempting to interrupt into the market. It is a travel-tech incumbent with over 160 million month-to-month customers, deep stock relationships, and years of behavioural knowledge, so precisely the sort of participant structurally positioned to win within the AI super-cycle, as a result of the conditions for high-impact AI are already sitting contained in the enterprise.

On February 27, Skyscanner launched a dedicated ChatGPT app that allows customers to seek for flights straight inside OpenAI’s conversational interface, initially within the UK and US markets.

Here’s the way it works:

• Users ask ChatGPT pure language questions like “find the cheapest flight to New York in December” or “weekend getaways from London under £200.” 
• ChatGPT routes the question to Skyscanner’s app, which pulls on knowledge from the platform’s 160 million month-to-month customers.
• Results are introduced throughout the conversational interface, and no separate tab or redirect is required.

Why does this innovation stand out?

Skyscanner’s Chief AI Officer Piero Sierra described this as the corporate evolving “beyond form-fills toward dynamic, answer-led experiences.”

That framing is larger than it sounds.

For twenty years, metasearch has operated on a easy mannequin: structured type, structured outcomes, click-through to OTA or airline. The ChatGPT app replaces that with dialog. The traveler describes what they need, and the AI returns choices. No departure date pickers, no airport code lookups, no multi-tab comparability. It essentially breaks the previous playbook.

What makes Skyscanner’s method strategically fascinating is its platform variety.

• This will not be a one-off ChatGPT integration. 
• Skyscanner was a launch associate for OpenAI’s Operator agent in January 2025, built-in with Microsoft Copilot Actions, and now has a devoted ChatGPT app.
• The firm is systematically embedding itself throughout completely different AI platforms, intentionally avoiding dependence on any single AI ecosystem, in order that wherever a shopper asks about flights, Skyscanner’s knowledge is the reply.

In our September 2025 version, we featured Wingie Enuygun’s MCP server as an early instance of metasearch adapting to AI protocols. Skyscanner’s multi-platform method takes this additional: not simply supporting one protocol, however attaining presence throughout your entire AI assistant ecosystem.

The aggressive implications are important. In a world the place AI brokers mediate flight search, the businesses that provide knowledge to these brokers acquire distribution energy. 

That closes our March version. The agentic journey stack is assembling quick, and we will likely be watching intently.

Join us in April, once we monitor how these early deployments mature and which new gamers enter the race.