OAG’s cloud-native transformation: Building scalable, next-generation aviation products

OAG’s data provides critical insights for major global airlines, powering many of the biggest names in travel, from American Airlines to Emirates. To maintain its competitive lead and ensure future growth, it initiated a project to re-engineer its successful legacy platforms and migrate to the cloud. This dual effort included rebuilding the flagship product, OAG Analyser, and modernising the real-time data platform, Flightview. Working alongside OAG's engineers, our clear joint goal was to leverage their technical strength and redirect it toward what mattered most: the customer experience.

OAG possessed a strong engineering culture, but the opportunity was to evolve it into a product-led, customer-focused model. It would mean aligning teams around measurable business outcomes, rather than just technical outputs. This required a fundamental shift in mindset, emphasising customer value and continuous improvement, alongside technology change. 

Alongside this cultural shift, OAG saw the opportunity to build a more resilient and agile technology foundation. It meant modernising its complex portfolio of over 150 legacy applications to simplify systems and improve security, building a more resilient technology foundation. Specific product goals included delivering a faster, more responsive experience for OAG Analyser’s global users and creating a scalable, secure foundation for Flightview to accelerate new feature development. 

Our strategy took a unified approach, combining technological change with a critical shift in team mindset regarding value delivery. We began with a data-driven review of the entire 150-application estate using the 5Rs of Rationalisation. For the high-value OAG Analyser, we chose to Replace the legacy system, rebuilding it as a cloud-native product on Snowflake to drastically reduce latency. OAG Flightview was Refactored to rebuild the back end, strengthening security and reducing overheads. Furthermore, we guided the transition from a siloed structure to multi-functional, product-led teams, starting with the Analytics Value Stream as a working blueprint. Workshops with the executive team aligned the organisation on a new, customer-centric vision, made tangible through defined OKRs and KPIs.

Our partnership delivered lasting results, fundamentally reshaping OAG's ability to innovate. They successfully moved to a product-led operating model, breaking down silos and significantly reducing the time it takes to bring new ideas to market. The systematic rationalisation of their 150-application estate and migration to the cloud established a coherent, secure, and efficient composable architecture, positioning the company for future growth. Crucially, this outcome-led approach has embedded a culture of continuous improvement across the business. The new platform, along with the establishment of an AI Centre of Excellence, creates a powerful innovation engine that ensures OAG can continuously create new value and maintain its competitive advantage.