Job Description/Specification:
Qatar Airways is hiring a Commercial Efficiency Manager (Payments) for its Distribution team in Doha, Qatar. This senior commercial role focuses on payment strategy, cost optimization, payment policies, and financial performance across indirect airline distribution channels.
The position is particularly relevant for professionals with experience in payments, airline distribution, aviation, travel, e-commerce, or financial operations, especially those who understand GDS, NDC, aggregators, payment service providers, and payment economics.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain the payment strategy for Qatar Airways’ indirect distribution channels, including GDS, NDC, aggregators, and other distribution platforms.
- Define preferred payment methods, cost-of-sale targets, payment acceptance principles, and commercial payment policies.
- Build and manage a payment roadmap covering new payment methods, capability improvements, and the rationalization of legacy solutions.
- Monitor payment costs, including acquirer fees, card scheme charges, processing costs, and other channel-related expenses.
- Analyze payment performance by market and distribution channel and provide reporting on costs, trends, and variances against targets.
- Drive adoption of preferred and lower-cost payment methods among trade and distribution partners.
- Establish and maintain policies covering payment acceptance, surcharging, local payment methods, and agency payment terms.
- Develop business cases for payment investments, technology upgrades, acquirer changes, and cost-optimization initiatives.
- Work with Finance on acquirer and payment service provider contracts, RFPs, negotiations, and commercial terms.
- Monitor agency payment compliance, payment disputes, breaches, and corrective actions across indirect channels.
- Coordinate fraud prevention, recovery mechanisms, and payment card fee optimization with Finance.
- Support payment readiness for new destinations and distribution channels by identifying local payment requirements before launch.
Requirements
Candidates should have a bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business Administration, Economics, or a related discipline, together with at least seven years of relevant professional experience.
The role requires strong knowledge and experience in areas such as:
- Payment strategy and commercial cost optimization.
- Airline distribution, travel, aviation, e-commerce, or financial operations.
- GDS, NDC, aggregators, and other indirect distribution ecosystems.
- Global payment methods, card schemes, alternative payment solutions, acquirers, and PSPs.
- Payment settlement processes and agency payment flows.
- Payment cost drivers and cost-of-sale management.
- Financial modelling, forecasting, and ROI analysis.
- Business case development and commercial performance tracking.
- Excel, Power BI, Tableau, or comparable analytical and reporting tools.
- Payment fraud prevention and financial risk management.
- Strong analytical, commercial, and problem-solving capabilities.
- Excellent written and spoken English.
Why You’ll Love This Opportunity
This Qatar Airways role provides exposure to a highly international commercial environment where payments, distribution, finance, technology, and airline operations intersect.
The position offers the opportunity to work on:
- Global payment and distribution strategies.
- Commercial cost optimization initiatives.
- New payment methods and technology.
- Cross-functional projects involving Commercial, Finance, and distribution teams.
- Complex international payment ecosystems and airline business models.
Who Should Apply?
This opportunity is suited to an experienced payments or commercial professional who can connect financial data with business decisions.
Strong candidates may come from airline distribution, payment companies, e-commerce, travel technology, banking, financial operations, or other environments where payment economics and multi-channel commercial performance are important.
The ideal profile combines analytical capability with commercial judgment. You should be comfortable working with financial models and dashboards while also understanding how payment decisions affect customers, agencies, distribution partners, and overall cost of sale.
Skills That Will Help You Succeed
Success in this position requires more than technical payment knowledge. Strong stakeholder management, negotiation, communication, financial analysis, and strategic planning skills will be important.
The ability to explain complex payment economics in clear business terms will also help when working with senior Commercial and Finance stakeholders.
How to Stand Out
Candidates can strengthen their CV by clearly demonstrating measurable achievements in payment strategy and cost optimization.
Instead of simply listing payment experience, highlight examples such as reducing processing costs, improving payment-method adoption, negotiating better commercial terms, managing large payment portfolios, improving forecasting accuracy, or delivering successful payment technology projects.
Experience working across multiple markets or distribution channels should also be clearly presented.
Interview Preparation
Prepare to discuss how you would evaluate the commercial performance of different payment methods and identify opportunities to reduce cost of sale.
Potential interview topics may include:
- How would you build an indirect-channel payment strategy?
- How would you compare payment methods based on cost and commercial value?
- What factors influence payment cost of sale?
- How would you build an ROI-based business case for a new payment method?
- How would you encourage agencies or partners to adopt preferred payment methods?
- How would you manage payment policy non-compliance?
- What metrics would you include in a payment performance dashboard?
Be prepared to explain your approach using practical examples, financial metrics, and measurable results.
Career Growth
A role combining payments, commercial strategy, airline distribution, Finance, technology, and international markets can provide broad exposure to several areas of the aviation business. Professionals can develop expertise in payment economics, commercial transformation, distribution strategy, and cross-functional programme management.
FAQs
What is the location of this Commercial Efficiency Manager job?
The position is based in Doha, Qatar.
What is the Qatar Airways job reference?
The reference number is 26000072.
What is the closing date?
The closing date is October 1, 2026.
How much experience is required?
A bachelor’s degree and a minimum of seven years of job-related experience are specified.
What type of experience is relevant?
Experience in payments, commercial strategy, airline distribution, aviation, travel, e-commerce, or financial operations is relevant, particularly experience involving payment optimization and multi-channel distribution.