Passenger-Settlement Liquidity Recovery Leader

The mandate

The airline operates a multi-channel ticket distribution model spanning direct card sales, travel agents, digital wallets and codeshare partnerships. Ticket-sale cash remains strong, though a material portion relates to unflown transportation, passenger taxes and advance bookings. Card acquirers maintain reserves and settlement agents net adjustments on different calendars. The head of passenger revenue finance has left, creating an executive gap as network recovery and advance sales activity continues.

The first twenty-five days require a channel-to-cash reconstruction from booking and payment through settlement, tax, flown status, refund eligibility, chargeback, agent adjustment and final revenue release. By day fifty-five, the leader must classify the refund backlog by passenger right, evidence, age, channel, operational dependency and cash date, and separately reconcile all acquirer and agent reserves. The ninety-day window must produce daily sources and uses plus disruption, sales slowdown, reserve increase and refund-acceleration cases for board action.

Decision rights include setting refund cash priorities within passenger obligations, assigning reconciliation owners, approving reserve forecasts, escalating acquirer evidence and requiring network scenarios to reflect unflown liability. The interim may stop unsupported revenue release, direct backlog triage and negotiate operational settlement issues within signed agreements. Flight scheduling, safety, passenger-rights interpretation, fare strategy, new financing, route cancellation, tax treatment and amendments to acquirer or agent contracts remain reserved.

The assignment must transfer reliable passenger-liquidity ownership before the next high-disruption season. The leader will define the permanent settlement-finance role, integrate treasury and revenue-accounting routines, and observe the successor lead three weekly refund cycles, one month-end unflown-revenue close and an acquirer review. Handover will cover unresolved journey records, disputed agent amounts, chargeback cohorts, restricted or reserved balances, tax mismatches, decision thresholds and failure modes in the booking-to-ledger interfaces.

The remit excludes customer-entitlement decisions, operational disruption management, safety actions, fare approval, tax opinions, chargeback adjudication by schemes and unauthorised use of ticket cash. The leader cannot delay valid refunds to improve reported liquidity, release unflown revenue without evidence, conceal acquirer reserves or direct staff to change journey status. Customer care, operations, counsel, tax owners, payment partners and accounting-policy leaders retain their formal responsibilities.

Why this seat is open

The departure left ticketing, settlement, customer obligation and treasury data without one accountable executive during an active disruption tail. Advance sales make the bank balance look healthier just when refund and unflown liabilities are rising. A fixed-term leader can restore channel-level evidence, make bounded cash decisions and hand the next season to permanent ownership without taking safety, network or passenger-rights authority.

What you will own

• Reconstruct ticket cash by channel, itinerary, payment, settlement, flown status, tax, refund, chargeback and revenue-release state.
• Establish a verified refund queue with entitlement dependency, customer evidence, age, amount, channel owner and expected cash date.
• Reconcile acquirer reserves, rolling holdbacks, agent remittances, codeshare balances, wallet funds and scheme chargebacks.
• Produce daily liquidity cases joining advance sales, flown release, refunds, taxes, reserves and operational disruption.
• Set escalation thresholds for backlog age, failed journey matching, reserve increases, settlement delay and channel concentration.
• Lead acquirer, agent and internal resolution forums while preserving contract, passenger, tax and accounting decision boundaries.
• Transfer settlement controls, data lineage, refund governance, partner schedules and residual exposures through observed successor cycles.

Candidate qualifications

• Has led airline passenger-revenue finance, settlement or treasury through material disruption and refund backlog.
• Understands unflown revenue, card acquiring, travel-agent remittance, codeshare settlement, passenger taxes, refunds and chargebacks.
• Can reconcile booking, departure-control, payment, settlement and ledger evidence without assuming all ticket cash is available.
• Has negotiated reserve and evidence issues with acquirers and agents while honouring valid passenger obligations.
• Brings executive judgement across network scenarios, customer impact, accounting boundaries, tax timing and liquidity stress.
• Has handed recovered airline-settlement operations to a permanent leader through live refund, close and partner cycles.