Capabilities
Assurance connected to performance and commercial value.
Seven interlocking capabilities, staffed by practitioners who have run the functions they review. Each one starts from an executive question — coverage, leakage, delivery or governance — and ends with a demonstrated result, not a report handover.
Capability index
Start with the mandate on your desk
Each capability below is detailed on this page — service modules, the problems it addresses and the deliverables you can expect.
For CAEs and audit committees
Internal audit & assurance
An audit function the committee can rely on: coverage aligned to the risks that actually move aviation P&Ls, plans the board understands, and findings that get closed — not re-raised.
Service modules
An audit function scoped across the whole airline, with a strategy the committee understands and quality built into how it works.
- Comprehensive coverage across commercial, financial, operations, cargo and outstations business units
- Internal Audit strategy and stakeholders' engagement
- Internal Audit Quality Assurance
- Internal Audit products
Planning built from risk, and analytics that keep the risk picture current between audits.
- Risk assessment metrics
- Annual audit planning
- Risk analytics for continuous monitoring
- Treatment of risks
Co-sourcing with an airline's internal audit department — capacity and specialist depth alongside your own team, under your charter.
- Project-based or yearly contracts
- Training the airline internal audit staff in complex business areas as required
- Options for a remote or hybrid structure
Delivery to a defined standard, with evidence properly retained and findings escalated and reported so they get acted on.
- Execution framework and its management standards
- Working paper management and back-up of evidence
- Escalation metrics
- Reporting framework
Problems this addresses
Example deliverables
- Risk assessment and annual audit plan covering commercial, financial, operations, cargo and outstations
- Internal audit strategy with stakeholder engagement approach
- Quality assurance review of the internal audit function
- Execution framework, management standards and working-paper protocols
- Escalation and reporting framework for findings and overdue actions
How we approach it
We build coverage across every part of the airline — commercial, financial, operations, cargo and outstations — and back it with risk analytics for continuous monitoring, so the plan tracks where exposure actually sits.
For CCOs and CFOs
Revenue & commercial assurance
Every revenue stream carries leakage points the P&L never labels. We find where money escapes after the fare is filed — and make sure it stops escaping.
Service modules
End-to-end controls testing across each way the business earns.
- Passenger revenue assurance — fares, taxes, exchanges and reissues
- Cargo revenue assurance — rating, weight breaks and accessorials
- Ancillary revenue assurance — bags, seats, upgrades and bundles
- Loyalty programme review — accrual, redemption and partner settlement integrity
- Revenue Assurance and Improvement Assessment — current potential and future assessments
Where commercial discretion meets control discipline.
- Strategy development for commercial and revenue management
- Pricing and revenue-management controls, including override governance
- Agency and distribution controls across GDS, NDC and direct channels
- Commission leakage and incentive-scheme integrity
- Groups and corporate sales — contract terms versus actual settlement
The flows where value quietly leaves — often within delegated authority.
- Interline, codeshare and SPA assurance — billing both directions
- Refund and waiver analysis across stations, channels and approvers
- Recovery workstreams for identified under-collection
Network decisions are only as good as the numbers beneath them.
- Route-profitability methodology and allocation review
- Reconciliation of commercial, finance and network views of the same route
- Controls over the data feeding fleet and network decisions
Problems this addresses
Example deliverables
- Revenue-leakage heat map across streams, channels and stations
- Refund and waiver exception analysis with approver-level detail
- Interline and SPA settlement review with recovery pipeline
- Pricing-override governance framework with delegated limits
- Route-profitability methodology assessment and single agreed view
How we approach it
We test each revenue stream end to end and read refunds and waivers across the whole population — exceptions that look immaterial approved one at a time can add up to real money in aggregate.
For CFOs and heads of procurement
Cost & contract assurance
Most aviation contracts already contain the protections leadership wants. The gap is enforcement — invoices checked against terms, entitlements claimed, credits collected.
Service modules
The largest recurring spend categories, tested against contract and consumption.
- Fuel controls — uplift, pricing formulas, hedging settlement and into-plane fees
- Airport and navigation charges — billed versus published tariffs and actual movements
- Ground-handling contracts — SLA compliance, billing accuracy and penalty clauses
- Catering and onboard services — meal counts, wastage and rate application
Where entitlements are largest and most frequently missed.
- MRO procurement — rate cards, exchange fees and repair-versus-replace decisions
- Warranty and guarantee recovery across OEM, engine and component agreements
- Lease and asset controls — return conditions, reserves and redelivery exposure
The structures behind the spend.
- Procurement and supplier review — tendering integrity and contract lifecycle controls
- Manpower productivity — rosters, overtime and establishment versus workload
- Shared-service effectiveness — cost, quality and control of internal service delivery
Problems this addresses
Example deliverables
- Contract-compliance review with quantified recovery register
- Warranty entitlement map by fleet, engine type and supplier
- Ground-handling and catering billing-accuracy exception report
- Lease return-condition exposure assessment by tail
- Procurement controls framework with segregation and delegation matrix
How we approach it
We check invoices against contract terms and pursue the entitlements already written into agreements — warranty and guarantee claims, credits and penalties that go unclaimed when nobody enforces the terms.
For CROs, CAEs and general counsel
Fraud & investigations
Fraud in aviation rarely announces itself — it hides in refunds, waivers, procurement and third parties. We build the early-warning system, and when something has already happened, we handle it with discretion.
Service modules
A defined approach to fraud that covers where it originates and keeps the right people engaged throughout.
- Fraud management strategy
- Coverage of internal and/or external frauds
- Stakeholders' management
Finding fraud through disciplined process review and full-population analysis rather than waiting for it to surface.
- Detection of frauds through process reviews
- Detection of frauds through analytics
Structured, evidence-preserving and confidential handling, with findings reported to the people who need them.
- Investigations
- Reporting
Problems this addresses
Example deliverables
- Fraud management strategy covering internal and external fraud
- Detection approach combining process reviews and analytics
- Investigation support with a documented chain of evidence
- Reporting for investigation outcomes and remediation
- Stakeholder management plan across the fraud lifecycle
How we approach it
We set a fraud management strategy, detect through process reviews and analytics, and handle investigations and reporting with discretion — keeping stakeholders engaged throughout.
For CEOs and transformation leaders
Strategy & performance
Plans challenged before capital is committed, organisations designed for the airline you are becoming, and transformation benefits tracked until they appear in the numbers.
Service modules
Independent pressure-testing before the board signs.
- Business-plan challenge — assumptions, sensitivities and downside cases
- Business growth and estimation for a route, region or country
- Commercial diagnostics across network, fleet and revenue drivers
- Benchmarking against operators of comparable scale and model
Making the organisation and cost base fit the operating model — not its history.
- Organisation design — spans, layers, accountabilities and decision rights
- Business transformation across the operating model
- Strategy development for network, procurement and finance management
- Setting up overseas branches
- Profitability and cost reviews
- Turnaround support where performance has already deteriorated
One agreed version of performance, and programmes that answer for their benefits.
- KPI architecture — measures that connect board intent to line accountability
- Business performance benchmarking with a dashboard tracking KPIs at unit, region or company level
- Management-information redesign around decisions, not departments
- Transformation governance — benefit definitions, ownership and independent tracking
Problems this addresses
Example deliverables
- Business-plan challenge report with downside scenarios
- Target operating model with accountabilities and decision rights
- KPI architecture linking board measures to line ownership
- Benefit-realisation tracker with named owners per initiative
- Redesigned executive management-information pack
How we approach it
We pressure-test the plan before capital is committed, then build the KPI architecture and benchmarking dashboards that give the board one agreed view of performance to steer with.
For CAEs, CIOs and CDOs
Data, digital & AI assurance
Assurance that runs continuously instead of annually: full-population analytics, monitored controls, governed AI and an executive view that is always current.
Service modules
From annual sampling to continuous, full-population coverage.
- Continuous-control monitoring over refunds, waivers, billing and settlement flows
- Audit analytics — exception-led fieldwork instead of sample-based testing
- Automated action tracking with ageing alerts and closure evidence
The systems and data the whole control environment depends on.
- ERP controls — access, segregation of duties and configuration integrity
- IT systems development, testing or evaluation support
- Process reengineering
- Data-governance assurance — ownership, lineage and quality of decision data
- KPOs or an IT system development centre for airlines in India on cost efficiency
- Technology-risk coordination across IT, security and audit functions
Governing the models the business adopts — and using them responsibly inside assurance itself.
- AI governance frameworks — inventory, accountability and human oversight
- AI-assisted document review across contracts, claims and audit evidence
- Predictive risk scoring to direct audit and monitoring effort
One live view of risk, control health and open actions.
- Business Intelligence dashboards and KPIs for leadership
- Executive control towers consolidating monitoring output for leadership
- Board and committee dashboards drawing on live control data
Problems this addresses
Example deliverables
- Continuous-monitoring rule set tuned to aviation transaction flows
- Analytics-led audit programme replacing sample-based testing
- AI governance framework with model inventory and oversight roles
- ERP access and segregation-of-duties assessment
- Executive control tower with live exception and action views
How we approach it
We move assurance from annual sampling to continuous, full-population analytics, and can stand up IT development, process reengineering and BI dashboards — including through a cost-efficient development centre in India.
For boards and CROs
Governance & risk
Risk management the board can actually steer with: a defined appetite, clear delegation, reporting that supports decisions and resilience that has been tested before it is needed.
Service modules
Risk management built for aviation exposure profiles, not a generic register.
- Enterprise-risk management design and maturity uplift
- Risk-appetite statements the executive can operationalise
- Risk-and-assurance mapping across the three lines
Clear structures for who decides what — and how the board sees it.
- Board and committee governance — charters, cadence and information rights
- Delegation of authority frameworks with control-tested limits
- Policy architecture — a coherent hierarchy instead of accumulated documents
Prepared for the regulator, and for the day operations stop.
- Regulatory readiness assessments ahead of inspections and licence events
- Business continuity — plans tested against realistic aviation disruption scenarios
The commitments made publicly, and the entities beyond head office.
- ESG and sustainability assurance — evidence behind reported claims
- Subsidiary governance — consistent control standards across group entities
Problems this addresses
Example deliverables
- Enterprise-risk framework with aviation-specific risk taxonomy
- Board-approved risk-appetite statement with operational triggers
- Delegation of authority matrix with control-tested limits
- One-page board risk and assurance reporting view
- Business-continuity plan tested against disruption scenarios
How we approach it
We build risk management around aviation exposure profiles — a defined appetite, clear delegation and decision-useful board reporting — so the board can steer rather than read.
Start a conversation
Bring us the capability question you are weighing — we will show you how we would scope it.
Coverage, leakage, a programme or a report: one confidential conversation with a senior practitioner, and a clear view of what an engagement would and would not involve.
Request a confidential 45-minute diagnostic