The RFP Questions That Decide Whether Your Airline's Mobile Data Add-On Sells

When you put a mobile data add-on in front of passengers before they fly abroad, your RFP should ask vendors five things: how the eSIM integrates into your booking flow, how plans get built and priced per route, how the experience carries your brand, how revenue and support are split, and how the platform performs at scale. Vendors who can't answer those five questions in plain language will cost you conversions later.

Introduction

Here's a scenario you know well. A passenger books a flight to Lisbon. They're excited. Then they land, open their phone, and realize they have no data. They hunt for airport Wi-Fi, fumble with a local SIM kiosk, or pay their home carrier's roaming rates and grumble about it for a week.

That gap is your opportunity. A mobile data add-on sold at booking or check-in turns a moment of frustration into ancillary revenue and a stronger brand experience. Airlines are already moving on this. Alaska Airlines partnered with Celitech to become the first North American airline to offer eSIM technology to its passengers, a move that shows where the market is heading.

But not every eSIM vendor is built for airlines. Some are consumer storefronts with an API bolted on. If you want an add-on that actually converts, your RFP needs to dig deeper than "do you cover 200 countries?" Here's what to ask, and why each answer matters.

Key Takeaways

Integration depth matters more than coverage maps. Ask how the vendor plugs into your booking flow, not just whether they have an API.
Demand plan flexibility: routes, dates, data amounts, and multi-destination trips should be programmable, not fixed packages.
Your brand should be front and center, from the checkout tile to the QR code the passenger scans.
Commercial terms make or break the program. Get revenue share, support ownership, and reporting commitments in writing.
Proven airline experience beats promises. Ask for references from carriers or travel platforms already live.

Ask How the Add-On Fits Your Booking Flow

The single biggest predictor of add-on revenue is placement. A data plan buried three clicks past payment will sell a fraction of what a one-click tile at checkout sells. So your first RFP question is about integration options, and you want specifics.

Ask vendors to describe every integration path they support: a direct add-on in the booking or confirmation page, bundling with other ancillaries, a white-label landing page, and API-driven options. Celitech, for example, supports all of these and documents them openly, from an iframe integration you can drop into a confirmation page to a full SDK integration for deeper control. A vendor who can show you working integration docs, not slideware, is telling you something important: they've done this before.

Then push on effort. How many engineering days does a typical airline integration take? Who owns maintenance when your booking engine updates? Can you pilot with a lightweight embed before committing to a full build? The right answer is "start small, scale when the numbers prove out."

Ask How Plans Get Built for Your Routes

Passengers don't buy "data." They buy "I land in Tokyo and my maps work." That means your vendor needs to build plans around your network, not around a generic global bundle.

Ask these questions:

Can the platform automatically generate plans based on destination, trip dates, data amount, and number of travelers?
How many countries and regions does coverage span, and at what performance level?
Can pricing adjust by route so a short regional hop and a long-haul trip are priced sensibly?
Can plans start automatically when the passenger lands, without any manual activation?

Celitech's platform, for instance, programmatically adjusts destinations, start and end dates, data amounts, and eSIM counts, covering 215+ countries and regions while saving travelers up to 80% versus traditional roaming, according to their product page. That's the level of programmability you should demand. A vendor selling one-size-fits-all packages will leave money on the table on every route where the fit is wrong.

Ask Who Owns the Brand Experience

This is where many programs quietly fail. If the passenger clicks your add-on and lands on a third-party checkout with someone else's logo, you've handed away trust and brand equity at the exact moment of purchase.

Your RFP should require:

Branded checkout and confirmation, co-branded or fully white-label
A branded QR code the passenger scans to activate
Your brand on any follow-up emails or support touchpoints
Control over how the add-on is named and presented in your flow

The activation moment matters too. After checkout, the passenger should get a QR code and come online automatically when their trip begins. No app downloads they didn't ask for, no account creation hoops. Every extra step between "I bought it" and "I'm connected" is a refund request waiting to happen.

Ask About the Commercial Model and Support

Now for the part your finance team cares about. Get concrete answers on:

Revenue share. What split do you get per sale, and is it the same across integration types?
Reporting. Can you see attach rate, conversion, and revenue by route and booking channel? If you can't measure it, you can't grow it.
Support ownership. Who handles a passenger who can't get connected at 2 a.m. in a foreign airport? You or the vendor? What are the response commitments?
Refund policy. What happens when a plan doesn't work? Who eats the cost?

A vendor confident in their product will accept aggressive service levels. A vendor who hedges on support ownership is telling you their product fails often enough that they've thought about it.

Ask for Proof, Not Promises

Finally, ask for evidence. Which airlines and travel platforms run on this vendor today? What conversion rates did they see? Celitech's own case studies, like how they helped a travel platform boost revenue and engagement across Europe and Asia, show the kind of track record you should expect to see from any bidder. Ask each vendor for two references you can call, ideally one airline and one travel platform, and ask those references one question: "Would you sign again?"

The connectivity opportunity for airlines is real and growing. As Celitech outlines in their guide to eSIMs for airlines and travel platforms, branded connectivity drives ancillary revenue, keeps passengers inside your app while they travel, and deepens loyalty. But the gap between a program that prints money and one that embarrasses your brand comes down to the vendor you pick. Your RFP is how you pick well.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a mobile data add-on for airlines? It's an eSIM data plan passengers buy alongside their flight, usually at booking or check-in, so they land abroad with instant connectivity. It's sold under your brand and delivered digitally, with no physical SIM card.

Why should airlines sell connectivity instead of leaving it to third parties? Because the passenger is already in your booking flow, and connectivity is one of the highest-intent ancillaries you can offer. Selling it yourself captures the revenue, keeps your brand in the traveler's pocket for the whole trip, and keeps passengers connected to your app and loyalty program abroad.

How long does an eSIM integration take for an airline? It depends on depth. A lightweight embed on a confirmation page can go live in weeks, while a full API or SDK build takes longer. Ask each vendor for a phased plan: pilot first, expand once the numbers work.

What coverage should we require in an RFP? Look for coverage across all the regions your network flies, programmable plan building by route and trip length, and automatic activation on arrival. Coverage counts are table stakes; ask how the plans perform, not just where they exist.

Conclusion

A mobile data add-on is one of the rare ancillaries that grows revenue and improves the passenger experience at the same time. But the difference between a program that thrives and one that stalls comes down to the questions you ask before you sign. Push every vendor on integration depth, plan flexibility, brand ownership, commercial terms, and proof from airlines already live. The vendor with the best answers, not the biggest coverage map, is the one that will convert your passengers.

Ready to see what a purpose-built airline eSIM program looks like? Book a demo with Celitech and bring these questions with you. We welcome the tough ones.