Building A Digital-Native Airline: How IBM Powered Riyadh Air’s Launch

Riyadh Air didn’t just launch an airline — it stood up a digital-native enterprise from scratch, building its technology platform and operating model simultaneously and without the drag of legacy systems. Executing that vision demanded a single, accountable partner capable of orchestrating architecture, vendor coordination, and program delivery across an unusually complex, multi-partner environment.

IBM Consulting was engaged at Riyadh Air’s inception, before the airline even had a full internal technology team. IBM helped define the technology strategy, structured vendor selection across hundreds of required capabilities, and served as Master Systems Integrator (MSI) — holding the line on architectural decisions even when schedule and cost pressures pushed for compromise.

In our latest case study, Building a Digital-Native Airline: How IBM Powered Riyadh Air’s Launch, completed in partnership with IBM, Futurum Research examines how orchestration and integration discipline helped a pre-revenue airline achieve a level of execution sophistication that typically takes established carriers years to develop.

In this case study, you will learn:

• How Riyadh Air built a cloud-based, modular architecture from a single target design — with no shortcuts
• Why Riyadh Air chose one Master Systems Integrator to own accountability across 60+ partners and 1,800+ system integrations
• How IBM Consulting’s orchestration accelerated time-to-market, customer-facing capability deployment, and multi-channel marketing execution
• What early economic value indicators — from page visits to campaign execution speed — reveal about Riyadh Air’s digital-native operating model

If you are interested in learning more, be sure to download your copy of Building a digital-native airline: How IBM powered Riyadh Air’s launch today.