Sukesh Shetty, Founder of Away.ai, explains how AI-driven recommendations and real-time flight information are helping the company adapt to a market where flexibility increasingly matters as much as price
India’s travel market is navigating a period of heightened uncertainty, with rising airfares and geopolitical tensions, particularly in West Asia, influencing how people plan their journeys. Yet, instead of abandoning their plans, travellers are increasingly adjusting destinations, exploring alternative flight routes and paying closer attention to flexibility and reliability.
“Cancelling has stopped being the first move. That’s the shift we’d point to,” says Sukesh Shetty, Founder of Away.ai. “The instinct used to be to pull the plug the moment something felt uncertain. Now people build the uncertainty into the plan and go ahead anyway.”
For Away.ai, this behavioural shift is influencing how travellers search for and book flights. The company is adapting its AI-powered recommendations to prioritise alternative transit points and non-Middle Eastern carriers, while placing greater emphasis on flexible fares, cancellation policies and real-time flight tracking.
From Cancellation To Adaptation
The response to uncertainty varies depending on the destination and purpose of travel. Travellers who had planned holidays in or near West Asia are considering premium domestic breaks or short-haul Southeast Asian destinations. Those travelling to Europe through the region are opting for alternative routes, even when these involve longer journeys or higher costs. Business travel to the Middle East has largely paused unless the trip is essential.
Across long-haul journeys, flexible fares that allow changes at short notice are gaining traction. Routes that bypass West Asia are being favoured over those that pass through it, while interest in Gulf carriers has declined.
However, Shetty cautions against assuming that uncertainty is triggering a wholesale change in travel preferences. “What we haven’t seen, and we’d push back on this if it’s the assumption, is any real jump in train or road travel, earlier booking, or people suddenly hunting for value packages.”
The distinction is important. Rather than abandoning air travel or uniformly trading down, travellers appear to be making more selective decisions about routes, carriers and the level of flexibility they need.
AI Steps In To Reroute Travel Choices
For travel platforms, responding to these changing preferences requires more than expanding destination options. It calls for the ability to recognise shifts in search and booking behaviour and adjust recommendations accordingly.
“Most of our users show us the shift before they say it out loud, so the job is to catch it fast,” says Shetty.
Away.ai’s AI now gives greater weight to routes with European or Southeast Asian transit points and automatically prioritises non-Middle Eastern carriers. Flexible, low-cancellation fares were already part of its offering, but these options are seeing stronger demand.
The approach reflects the growing role of technology in helping travellers navigate uncertainty. By presenting alternative routes and suitable fare options, platforms can help users weigh the trade-offs between cost, convenience and flexibility. The emphasis is on responding to actual booking behaviour rather than relying solely on broad assumptions about what customers want.
Reliability Becomes Central To The Booking Experience
The shift in priorities extends beyond the point of booking. Travellers are paying closer attention to what happens after their tickets are confirmed, making flight reliability and timely information increasingly important.
“The other change has been in what we watch after someone books, not before,” says Shetty. “On-time performance. A carrier’s cancellation history. Live tracking on flights that are already confirmed. That’s moved from a nice-to-have to the centre of the product.”
For Away.ai, this means placing greater emphasis on airline performance, cancellation history and live flight tracking. These features are becoming central to the customer experience rather than optional additions.
The change highlights a broader expectation from travel technology platforms: travellers want information not only to make better booking decisions but also to manage their journeys after confirmation. As uncertainty persists, access to relevant updates and visibility into airline performance become increasingly valuable.
For travel platforms, the challenge is to support customers throughout their journeys rather than focus exclusively on facilitating bookings.
A Market Defined By Destination-Specific Decisions
Shetty does not expect travel behaviour to return entirely to previous patterns. “We don’t think this settles back to how things were. Airfare volatility and geopolitical risk aren’t a phase anymore, they’re just part of running this business now,” he says.
However, this does not mean all travellers will respond in the same way. Their decisions depend heavily on the destination and the route involved.
“The key is to understand that what decides how someone books isn’t a general mood, it’s the specific destination,” Shetty explains. “A route through an unsettled region gets planned around flexibility. A route to somewhere calm gets planned around price. That’s the trade-off travellers are actually making, destination by destination.”
This distinction challenges the assumption that travellers are becoming uniformly more price-conscious. Instead, the balance between price, flexibility and reliability changes according to the circumstances of each journey.
For travel companies, understanding these differences will be critical to tailoring recommendations and responding to evolving customer needs.
Balancing Price, Flexibility And Confidence
The changing travel landscape presents a challenge for platforms seeking to meet customer expectations while navigating unpredictable external conditions. A strategy focused exclusively on lower prices or discounted packages may not address the different priorities travellers bring to each journey.
Away.ai’s response centres on adapting its recommendations, highlighting flexible fare options and providing greater visibility into airline reliability. The emphasis is on helping travellers make decisions based on the specific risks and requirements of their itineraries.
As India’s travel market evolves, the ability to combine competitive options with flexibility and reliable information could become increasingly important. The emerging pattern is not necessarily a retreat from travel, but a more calculated approach to planning it.
For the industry, the message is clear: travellers may still be willing to take their trips, but the conditions under which they book are changing. Understanding those conditions—and adapting quickly to them—will be central to competing in a market where uncertainty has become part of the journey.
