Challenges we solve
Start from the problem, not the service.
Executives rarely wake up wanting an audit or a framework. They wake up with a question they cannot yet answer. Each challenge below is written from that seat — what it looks like, why it happens and how we take it apart.
Challenge index
Twelve problems we are asked about most
Challenge 01
Revenue is leaking and nobody can say where
The network flies full, yields hold, yet cash lags the plan. Leakage rarely announces itself — it hides in waivers, group deposits, interline proration, agency incentives and ancillary collection gaps, each individually too small to escalate.
Why it matters
At airline margins, a fraction of a percent of revenue lost is a large share of profit lost. Worse, unexplained leakage corrodes trust between commercial, finance and the board — every forecast becomes negotiable.
Typical warning signs
- Refund and waiver volumes rise faster than disruption events explain
- Group sales materialise below contract with deposits rarely forfeited
- Flown revenue and billed revenue reconcile only "in aggregate"
- Agency incentive payouts grow while agency share of sales does not
- Ancillary revenue per passenger varies by station beyond any market logic
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — full-population analytics across the fare-to-cash chain, not samples.
- Diagnose — trace each leak to the control, authority or system gap behind it.
- Design — rebuild the specific controls and exception thresholds that failed.
- Deliver — support recovery actions and control implementation with owners and dates.
- Demonstrate — report recovered value and leak-rate trend to the executive.
Challenge 02
Internal audit works hard but misses what moves the P&L
The function is diligent, the reports arrive on time — and the surprises still come from areas the plan never touched. Audit teams built on finance and compliance foundations often lack the aviation depth to challenge revenue management, network planning or engineering.
Why it matters
The audit committee's assurance is only as good as the function's reach. A capable team auditing the wrong universe gives comfort where none is warranted — the most expensive kind of assurance.
Typical warning signs
- Major incidents and losses arise in areas audited "green" or never audited
- Commercial and operations leaders privately regard audit findings as peripheral
- Audit testing remains sample-based while the business runs on full data
- Reports describe process gaps but rarely quantify financial exposure
- The committee cannot recall a finding that changed a management decision
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — benchmark the function against aviation risk coverage, skills and analytics use.
- Diagnose — locate the root gaps: universe, methodology, capability or standing.
- Design — target operating model, skills plan and analytics roadmap for the function.
- Deliver — co-source the aviation-specialist audits while capability builds.
- Demonstrate — evidence improved coverage and decision-relevance to the committee.
Challenge 03
The audit plan does not reflect the real risk universe
The plan was inherited, then rolled forward. It covers ledgers and stations thoroughly, while fuel hedging governance, slot value, alliance settlements and IT change — the risks that could genuinely damage the airline — sit outside it entirely.
Why it matters
Assurance budgets are finite. Every hour spent re-auditing a low-risk process is an hour not spent on an exposure the board would consider material. The gap is invisible until it isn't.
Typical warning signs
- The audit universe maps to the organisation chart, not to how value is earned and lost
- Risk ratings driven by audit history rather than exposure and volatility
- New ventures — loyalty monetisation, codeshares, digital channels — absent from the plan
- Safety-adjacent and regulatory interfaces assumed to be "someone else's assurance"
- The same entities audited on the same cycle for years, regardless of change
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — map the actual aviation risk universe against current plan coverage.
- Diagnose — quantify where assurance effort and genuine exposure diverge.
- Design — rebuild the universe and a risk-based, multi-year plan around it.
- Deliver — transition the plan with the CAE, including committee approval.
- Demonstrate — coverage-versus-risk reporting the committee can interrogate.
Challenge 04
The transformation is on plan — the benefits are not
Milestones turn green, steering committees applaud, and the cost base refuses to move. Aviation transformations fail quietly: benefits double-counted across initiatives, baselines redrawn mid-flight, savings "delivered" into budgets that were never reduced.
Why it matters
Transformation spend is usually committed against a benefits case the board approved. If realisation is not independently verified, the organisation pays twice — once for the programme, once for the performance it never received.
Typical warning signs
- Programme reporting tracks activity and milestones, not P&L movement
- Benefit baselines shift each quarter and no one can produce the original
- The same saving appears in two initiatives under different names
- Unit costs per ASK or per turn are flat despite "delivered" savings
- Benefit ownership sits with the programme office, not line executives
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — test claimed benefits against financial actuals and baselines.
- Diagnose — separate genuine delivery from re-baselining and double-counting.
- Design — a benefit-realisation framework with named line ownership.
- Deliver — embed tracking into financial planning, not programme decks.
- Demonstrate — independent realisation reporting to the board each cycle.
Challenge 05
Every meeting starts with an argument about the numbers
Commercial, finance and operations each arrive with their own version of load factor, yield or cost per turn — all technically defensible, none reconciled. Decisions get deferred to the next meeting, where the same argument resumes.
Why it matters
An airline that cannot agree its numbers cannot act on them. The cost is not just error — it is speed. Competitors with one trusted view decide in days what takes a divided organisation a quarter.
Typical warning signs
- The same KPI appears in three packs with three values and three definitions
- Analysts spend more time reconciling extracts than analysing them
- Executives keep private spreadsheets because they distrust the official pack
- Restatements of previously reported results have become routine
- Data ownership is undefined — everyone consumes, no one is accountable
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — trace disputed KPIs to source systems and definition breaks.
- Diagnose — establish where logic, timing or ownership causes divergence.
- Design — a single KPI dictionary, data ownership model and MI architecture.
- Deliver — rebuild priority packs on the agreed definitions, retiring shadow versions.
- Demonstrate — one reconciled executive view, tested and accepted by its users.
Challenge 06
Suppliers are paid in full — obligations are not delivered in full
Fuel, ground handling, catering, airport charges, IT and lease agreements were negotiated hard. Then the contract went into a drawer, invoices went on auto-approve, and the discounts, rebates, service credits and rate protections quietly stopped being claimed.
Why it matters
Third-party spend is most of an airline's cost base. A small percentage of unenforced entitlement across that base routinely exceeds the annual saving target of an entire procurement function.
Typical warning signs
- Invoices are approved against budget, not against contracted rates
- Volume rebates and performance credits are never invoiced by your side
- Rate escalations apply automatically; de-escalation clauses never do
- SLA penalties exist on paper but have not been levied in living memory
- No one can produce the current signed version of a major contract
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — match invoices to contract terms across top-spend agreements.
- Diagnose — quantify the entitlement gap and identify why enforcement lapsed.
- Design — a contract-compliance control layer and obligation register.
- Deliver — support recovery claims and renegotiation with evidence in hand.
- Demonstrate — recovered value and a live compliance dashboard for the CFO.
Challenge 07
Warranty entitlements expire quietly while maintenance costs are absorbed
Every component removal, engine event and reliability shortfall potentially carries an OEM or supplier entitlement. But claims depend on engineers flagging them within windows, with documentation, against contracts they have never read. Most entitlements simply time out.
Why it matters
Maintenance is a top-three cost line, and warranty recovery is one of the few places where cash can be recovered rather than merely saved. Unclaimed entitlements are earned money left with the supplier.
Typical warning signs
- Component removals are not screened against warranty status before repair orders are raised
- Claims raised per year are flat while fleet size and events grow
- Reliability guarantees in purchase agreements have never been measured, let alone invoked
- Claim rejections are accepted without challenge or pattern analysis
- Warranty administration sits with one person, on one spreadsheet
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — screen historical removals and events against contractual entitlements.
- Diagnose — establish where the claim workflow breaks: awareness, data or deadline.
- Design — an entitlement register and claim process embedded in engineering systems.
- Deliver — prepare and pursue recoverable claims alongside your team.
- Demonstrate — recovered value and claim-rate tracking reported quarterly.
Challenge 08
Fraud is discovered by accident, not by design
The cases that surface arrive by tip-off, resignation or luck — refund manipulation at a station, ghost manpower in a handling roster, procurement kickbacks, misused waivers. What surfaces is rarely the full population; it is the careless tail of it.
Why it matters
Aviation's dispersed stations, high transaction volumes and delegated authorities create textbook fraud conditions. Beyond direct loss, a mishandled case can create regulatory exposure and reputational damage that outlasts the money.
Typical warning signs
- Refunds, waivers and FOC issuance concentrate around specific agents or stations
- Suppliers with shared addresses, directors or bank accounts pass vendor screening
- Overtime and allowance claims spike at stations without matching schedule changes
- Whistleblowing channels exist but receive almost nothing
- Past incidents were settled quietly with no control remediation
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — data-led red-flag analytics across refunds, payroll, procurement and billing.
- Diagnose — assess fraud-risk exposure by scheme, process and location.
- Design — prevention controls, whistleblowing framework and response protocols.
- Deliver — investigation support and remediation where cases are confirmed.
- Demonstrate — continuous red-flag monitoring reporting into audit and risk.
Challenge 09
Critical recommendations stay open until the risk repeats
The finding was agreed, the action assigned, the date set. Then the date moved. And moved again. Action trackers fill with items marked "in progress" for years — until the incident the recommendation would have prevented finally happens.
Why it matters
An unimplemented recommendation is a documented, accepted, unmitigated risk — the worst possible position when regulators, insurers or litigators later ask who knew what. It also signals that assurance carries no consequence.
Typical warning signs
- High-risk actions have been extended three or more times without escalation
- Closure is accepted on management's word, with no evidence testing
- The same finding recurs at different stations under new wording
- Action owners have changed roles and no one reassigned accountability
- The committee sees ageing statistics but never the specific stuck items
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — analyse the open-action population by risk, age and extension history.
- Diagnose — separate genuine complexity from ownership and consequence failure.
- Design — an escalation model with evidence-based closure verification.
- Deliver — clear the critical backlog through targeted remediation sprints.
- Demonstrate — verified-closure reporting the audit committee can rely on.
Challenge 10
The structure fits the airline you were, not the one you are becoming
Fleet doubled, network changed, digital channels arrived — and the organisation chart is the old one with boxes added. Decisions escalate to the only level where functions meet, spans of control are accidents of history, and accountability for outcomes belongs to everyone and no one.
Why it matters
Structure is strategy made operational. A misfit design taxes every initiative: slower decisions, duplicated cost, and talent that leaves because responsibility never matches title.
Typical warning signs
- Routine cross-functional decisions routinely reach the CEO's desk
- Overhead headcount grows faster than capacity flown
- New capabilities are bolted on as standalone units that duplicate existing teams
- Delegation-of-authority documents no longer match how decisions are actually made
- Interim and acting arrangements have quietly become permanent
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — map actual decision flows, spans and cost against the formal design.
- Diagnose — identify where structure, authority and strategy diverge.
- Design — a target operating model with clean accountability and delegation.
- Deliver — sequenced transition support, including capability moves.
- Demonstrate — decision speed and overhead metrics tracked post-change.
Challenge 11
Route decisions rest on profitability numbers no two teams agree on
Network planning says the route makes money; finance says it loses it. Both are right within their own allocation logic — ownership costs, overhead spread, connecting-revenue credit and currency treatment differ, so every route review becomes a methodology debate instead of a decision.
Why it matters
Fleet and network commitments are the largest bets an airline places. Made on contested numbers, they are either wrong or — worse — unexaminable, because whoever loses the argument simply disputes the model.
Typical warning signs
- A route flips between profit and loss depending on which department's model is used
- Connecting revenue is credited in full to more than one sector
- Allocation rules were set years ago and survive because changing them reopens every result
- Chronic loss-makers persist because "the network needs them" — untested
- Route decisions are re-litigated within months of being made
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — reconcile competing models to their allocation and data differences.
- Diagnose — test each rule against decision-usefulness, not departmental preference.
- Design — one agreed profitability methodology with tiered views (cash, contribution, fully allocated).
- Deliver — implement the model and governance for changing it.
- Demonstrate — route reviews run on a single accepted view, decisions minuted against it.
Challenge 12
The board pack is long, late and light on decisions
Two hundred pages arrive forty-eight hours before the meeting. Everything is reported; almost nothing is decidable. Directors skim for the items that matter and hope the narrative around them is complete — because the pack's length is a substitute for its judgement.
Why it matters
Boards govern through what they see. A pack that buries the five things that matter under the two hundred that don't transfers risk judgement from the board to whoever compiled the appendix.
Typical warning signs
- Meeting time goes to noting reports, not making decisions
- Directors ask basic clarifying questions the pack should have answered
- Risk reporting lists risks but never states what changed since last quarter
- Material issues surface in the meeting that appear nowhere in the pack
- The pack has grown every year; the decisions minuted have not
How RaKi approaches it
- Detect — audit current packs against the decisions the board actually took.
- Diagnose — identify what directors need, use, ignore and lack.
- Design — a decision-first reporting architecture: exhibits, exceptions, asks.
- Deliver — rebuild priority packs with the secretariat and report owners.
- Demonstrate — shorter packs, earlier circulation, decisions traceable to exhibits.
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