Difficult claim filing process
Insufficient investment in tracking technology
FA-01
Core System Rigidity
Systemic Anatomy
Systemic Description
Foundational transactional systems (PSS, PMS, core booking engines) are architected for transactional stability and inventory control, not for flexible customer interactions or modern integrations.
Root Cause Type
Technical Architecture Lock-In
Why It Recurs
Replacing 'systems of record' carries operational risk and capital cost that exceeds annual budget authority, forcing organizations to layer workarounds indefinitely.
Governance Failure
IT architecture renewal is deferred year-over-year in favor of maintaining legacy stability; lack of multi-year capital planning for platform modernization.
Scope Boundary
Does not explain UI/UX design flaws, content management issues, or feature gaps solvable without backend re-architecture. Does not explain maintenance quality or operational discipline.
Structural Risk Profile
Decision Frequency
low
How often decisions of this type are made in the affected context.
Blast Radius
systemic
The scope and scale of impact when this friction manifests.
Reversibility
locked-in
The ease with which decisions affected by this friction can be undone.
Time to Impact
cumulative
The delay between decision and observable consequence.
Decision Fallout
Typical Decisions
- Approving tactical middleware patches instead of funding platform replacement
- Deferring core system upgrades to meet quarterly financial targets
Delayed Effects
- Technical debt compounds exponentially, making future changes prohibitively expensive
- Inability to integrate with modern third-party platforms and APIs
Early Warning Signals
- Basic customer-facing features require 6+ months of backend engineering
- Recurring data synchronization failures between systems
Manifestations
Limited priority boarding for families
Inadequate booking system support for families
Inability to hold reservations without payment
Lack of real-time inventory management
Complex group booking procedures
Outdated group booking systems
Limited customization options
Insufficient API development for TMC integration
Complex point earning rules
Outdated loyalty management platforms
Unclear boarding pass access
Inadequate API development
Inadequate real-time flight updates
Insufficient cross-platform consistency
Slow refund processing times
Manual refund processing workflows
Resolution Boundary
Decision Level
board-level
This friction cannot be resolved at lower organizational levels because platform replacement requires multi-year capital commitments that exceed annual budget authority. Board-level involvement is structurally necessary because the decision trades short-term earnings against long-term operational flexibility, a trade-off that management cannot make without governance-level authorization.
This friction cannot be resolved locally.
Type of Change Required
IT Function Repositioning
- Legacy system persistence is structurally enabled when IT is governed as a utility maintenance function rather than a product organization. The change required involves reconstituting IT's organizational mandate and authority to include platform lifecycle ownership.
Platform Architecture Decision Authority
- This friction persists because architecture decisions remain subordinate to annual budget cycles, preventing multi-year platform replacement commitments. The decision structure must elevate platform architecture to strategic capital planning with protected funding horizons that exceed single fiscal years.
Technical Debt Governance
- Workaround accumulation occurs when no governance mechanism quantifies the cumulative cost of deferral. The friction recurs until technical debt becomes a tracked liability with board-level visibility, forcing explicit trade-off conversations between deferral and replacement.
What Does Not Work
- Attempts to speed up delivery within existing architecture fail because the constraint is structural, not processual. Increased development velocity against an inflexible backend simply produces faster accumulation of workarounds.
- These approaches fail because they attempt to resolve an architectural problem with tactical interventions. Gradual migration strategies extend the existence of dual systems, compounding integration complexity and extending the period of technical fragility.
- Building integration layers on top of rigid cores addresses symptoms while entrenching the root cause. Each new workaround increases system interdependency, making future replacement exponentially more expensive and risky.
AERIM
AERIM is the operating system designed to resolve the structural conditions described above. It addresses the governance, coordination, and decision architecture failures that the Friction Atlas documents. AERIM operates at the resolution boundary where local fixes fail and systemic change is required.