ABSTRACT A digital payment system is an underlying technology that enhances customer experience in the retailing industry, including airlines. Adopting an innovative payment system expands the retailing platform by offering customers convenient access to products. In this paper, we analyze the innovative payment adoption for airlines operating the US-China route and its impact on airline performance based on passenger volume. We focus on fast emerging digital payment systems in China such as Alipay and WeChat Pay. We also compare Google Pay to provide a comparison between the U.S. and China’s different prevalent payment methods. Dates of the digital payment adoption by airlines are collected via news releases and publicly available information. The fixed effects regression was used to assess how an innovative payment adoption influenced the performance of airlines. Our results show that adopting a new digital payment system significantly improves cross-border route performance when the adopted payments are dominantly used in a partnering country. WeChat pay and Alipay, the two widely used payment systems in China, as well as Google Pay, are linked to significantly increasing passenger volume. Our findings offer airlines practical implications on the potential of innovative payment systems and suggest that the benefits of adopting new payment method strategies can outweigh the challenges of adoption when targeting customers from new emerging markets. Keywords Digital Payment, E-wallets, Airlines, FinTech