USA33: How an Aviation Tech Vendor Rebranded Platform Orchestration as Enterprise Architecture

Overview:

This case is part of a 100-diagnostic series exposing how US enterprises have mislabeled product capabilities as “Enterprise Architecture.”

In aviation technology, a recurring pattern is branding platform orchestration as Enterprise Architecture.

Vendors demonstrated that their platform could connect booking, baggage, and departure systems — yet the enterprise structure across airlines, airports, regulators, and service partners was never defined.

P1–P6 Insight Preview: 

Orchestration improved cross-application integration points (P3) and sped component rollout (P4–P5), but lacked industry-level strategy alignment (P1) and shared process architecture (P2).

Business operations (P6) at customer airlines still patched disruptions manually; tech operations (P6) faced high customization per client.

Role Disconnects:

1. CEO: “Our orchestration platform is an architecture breakthrough” — but it solves local integration, not enterprise design.
   

2. CIO: “We connect all operational systems” — but each airline runs its own disconnected workflows.
   

3. Sales Head: “Our platform shortens implementation time” — yet every deployment is a unique, costly build.
   

4. Chief EA: This is orchestration, not architecture — behavior models are missing.”
   

5. Head of Airline Product Integration: The platform links systems, but doesn’t give them a common operational logic.

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