António Loureiro: Guiding Travel’s Evolution from Distribution to the Skies

Few professionals in the travel industry can claim the breadth and depth of experience that António Loureiro brings to the table. With over three decades in travel technology, distribution, and aviation, he has become one of the most influential figures in the Iberian travel ecosystem.

Today, Loureiro is General Director of Iberojet Portugal, the leisure airline of Ávoris, where he’s leading the company’s expansion and strengthening its position in a highly competitive market. But his impact doesn’t stop there. As a board member at BAE Ventures, Loureiro plays a fundamental role in helping the firm identify scalable opportunities at the intersection of travel distribution, corporate innovation, and venture building.

Before joining Iberojet in January 2023, Loureiro led Travelport’s operations in Spain, Brazil, France, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Cape Verde and Mozambique. Under his leadership, the company reinforced its market presence and deepened its relationships with leading travel agencies and airline partners. His ability to bridge legacy systems with emerging technologies earned him recognition across several international markets, positioning him as a trusted voice in the evolution of travel distribution.

At BAE Ventures, Loureiro brings to the table a rare combination of deep operational experience and strategic foresight. He helps evaluate which startup models are venture-backable, which innovations are commercially viable, and how corporates and founders can better align to solve systemic inefficiencies in travel and tourism.

We sat down with António to explore where he sees the most relevant opportunities for startups and investors in the next wave of travel innovation.

In your view, where do the biggest venture opportunities lie in the travel distribution space today?

Travel distribution has always been ripe for disruption, but now the need for transformation is urgent — and the tools finally exist. The biggest opportunities are in modernizing the underlying infrastructure: connectivity, content aggregation, pricing intelligence, and payment orchestration. These are the invisible layers that power the industry — and they’re still running on architecture from two or three decades ago. Startups that can offer modular, API-native solutions to replace or enhance those layers will create real enterprise value. But they need to go beyond technology — they must understand commercial models, market fragmentation, and global compliance. That’s where strategic capital, like BAE’s, becomes crucial.

What advice would you give startups looking to work with large players in tourism, like airlines or GDSs?

Build for integration, not isolation. Startups often try to reinvent the whole stack, which is admirable — but in this industry, it’s rarely successful. Airlines and GDSs operate within highly regulated, risk-sensitive environments with deep dependencies. What corporates want is innovation that doesn’t require them to throw everything away. They’re looking for smart, flexible tools that solve specific problems without introducing operational risk. My advice? Talk less about disruption and more about augmentation. Show that you understand the pain points of the operator — not just the user. And above all, prove that your solution can scale with reliability.

How can venture capital better support innovation in travel, which is often seen as slow-moving or conservative?

It starts with recognizing that this industry isn’t resistant to innovation — it’s resistant to noise. Travel has seen countless “next big things” that failed to reach scale because they were built without understanding the ecosystem. VC has to go beyond capital and bring strategic context to the table. That means involving industry experts early, fostering corporate-startup collaborations, and prioritizing founders who know how to navigate B2B complexity. At BAE Ventures, we try to de-risk this path — we connect the dots between startups, corporates, and market needs. We’re not just looking for unicorns; we’re building bridges that create long-term value for the ecosystem.

What kinds of founders or ideas excite you most, as a BAE Ventures board member?

I’m most excited by founders who combine deep industry knowledge with a builder’s mindset. People who’ve lived the problem — who’ve sat inside a DMC, a TMC, or an airline ops room — and now want to fix it with tech. The best founders don’t chase trends; they identify friction and quietly solve it. I also like ideas that are boring on the surface but transformative under the hood — like improving procurement flows, optimizing commissions, or building smarter tools for mid-market operators. These aren’t flashy, but they scale. As a board member, I try to encourage BAE to back those kinds of founders — the ones building the infrastructure that travel innovation will stand on.