Why Turkish Airlines is betting on an in-house LLM and an AI teammate

SoarAI

SoarAI
Why Turkish Airlines is betting on an in-house LLM and an AI teammate
Oct 06, 2026 Episode 3 Simpliflying

Turkish Airlines writes most of its own software and is building an offer-order retailing platform in-house, and plans to sell it to other airlines. The executive in charge of product development explains where AI fits in, and what the airline has learnt from putting its flights into ChatGPT and Claude.


Episode summary

Yılmaz Goralı runs airline retailing product development at Turkish Technology, the technology arm of the Turkish Airlines group. In this episode of the SoarAI podcast, he explains why a group that already builds its own passenger service system, booking engine, payment and loyalty systems decided at the end of 2023 to build modern airline retailing as well.

He sees three uses for AI: building products and code, working alongside staff as a teammate, and serving passengers. One revenue manager covering Istanbul–Frankfurt cannot scan the next twelve months alone, so the system should flag what needs action. A family heading home from Lapland should hear about a likely blizzard a day early, along with an offer of an extra night. He also covers why he treats an AI chat as a sales channel with its own rules, and why airlines that keep selling static fares to AI agents could end up as white-label carriers.


What you will hear

  • Why Turkish Technology became a company in its own right in 2021, and why the group builds most of its software instead of buying it
  • What the airline's AI apps do today, what they don't do yet, and a proof of concept connecting MCP to Turkish Airlines' own NDC system
  • Details about the MCP server and the app with 14 capabilities in ChatGPT and Claude that Turkish Technology's digital lab has released 
  • Why performance is the first thing to measure when customers try something new, and why it is too early for conclusions
  • Where he would put his own money: the signals that shape a travel decision, including the demand airlines never see
  • Why safety is the place to be cautious, and what a startup should bring if it wants to sell to Turkish Airlines


Notable quotes

"I'm not going to sugarcoat that we did everything and we figured it out."

"We envision a future where airlines are not using AI as a tool, but a teammate."

"Otherwise, the best thing we could do is to replicate the current systems and processes, and this is not what we are here for."


About the guest

Yılmaz Goralı is Vice President, Airline Retailing – Product Development at Turkish Technology, the technology company of the Turkish Airlines group. He has almost three decades of experience in travel technology and works on the group's offer-order retailing platform, which Turkish Technology plans to market to other airlines. [LinkedIn]


About the hosts

Shashank Nigam is CEO of SimpliFlying, a leading aviation strategy firm with more than 18 years of experience working with 120+ organisations. SoarAI is our new practice covering how artificial intelligence is being built and deployed across the sector.

Peter Bellew is Founder of Dooks Capital, former CEO of Malaysia Airlines and former Chief Operating Officer of Ryanair and Riyadh Air. Dooks Capital backs early-stage technical founders building AI for airline, airport, and ground operations intelligence.


About the SoarAI podcast

SoarAI is the world's first podcast on artificial intelligence in aviation. SimpliFlying brings you in-depth and unfiltered conversations with aviation leaders on how the industry is evaluating, implementing and scaling AI in the real world.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. New episodes of SoarAI drop every fortnight.

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