Aviation industry software is outdated and based on the necessities and limits of 1980s computers. There indeed is a huge opportunity to bring something better and well integrated, especially if you can reliably connect the different businesses that need to cooperate to transport a passenger from A to B - air operators, aircraft owners, ground handling operators, charter brokers, airports, maintenance providers, etc. This all runs on humans and email now. Go for it.
- a software engineer in aviation industry
The buyers are actively looking for new options. They were practically begging us to consider entering the market at EBACE past few years, but we're working with business jet operators only now.
7 years ago we didn't know anything about aviation. Was much easier to learn than other verticals I worked in.
The first step would be to find out and truly understand why things are the way they are today. They didn't get there on accident - so before cooking up a plan to "improve" the industry you must first understand what the industry would consider an improvement.
Also, it will be difficult to break out into an industry like Airlines. They will be conservative in nature and risk averse. It's unlikely they will take a gamble on an unknown startup's service/platform.
Lastly - the issue they've experienced over the past few days is not something a startup or SaaS platform would have prevented.