By Eric Léopold, Founder, Threedot 

With passenger traffic recovering to pre-COVID levels, the challenges of the air travel experience are reemerging, raising questions about the nature of travel demand: has anything changed during the pandemic? In this article, I suggest five opportunities to enhance the traveler’s experience.

The expectation remains unchanged: customers expect a seamless travel experience. This expectation stems from their experiences with seamless services managed by a single operator in a closed environment. The younger generation, in particular, has even greater expectations for real-time information and instant responses.

The challenge is growing: customers often overlook that air transport requires the coordination of dozens of players, which take time to modernize their processes and technology. Some players, such as air traffic control or security screening, have no primary interest in a smooth experience.

The solutions require evolution at all levels: vision, mindset, people, processes, and technology. Supporting a seamless travel experience depends on the partial interconnection and alignment of numerous service providers.

 

Vision

The vision of the world’s largest low-cost carrier (LCC), Ryanair, is reportedly to maximize control, with direct sales, point-to-point flights to secondary airports for “resourceful” customers. In contrast, many legacy airlines aim to maximize reach, with indirect sales and hub-and-spoke networks using multiple aircraft types. A third vision involves creating a layer above or below all players, connecting and aligning them through either a centralized commercial player or a decentralized community approach. Customers need to navigate between players that have different visions of what the air travel experience should be.

 

Mindset

The mindset of interoperating partners ranges from “hospitality companies”, like Riyadh Air, which are genuinely customer-obsessed, to government-owned operators, such as air traffic controllers or security authorities, whose mandates prioritize safety and security above all else. Interestingly Riyadh Air is at the same time government-owned, focused on safety and security, and obsessed by customers.

 

People

People make the difference in a service industry. The best service requires that: 1) Operations are adequately staffed, which remains a challenge post-COVID as many qualified people have left the industry; 2) Staff are adequately trained on the latest processes and tools; and 3) Measures are in place to monitor service levels and recognize outstanding contributions. Attracting, developing and retaining talent remains a key challenge to provide a consistent travel experience.

 

Processes

Passenger processes need to be revisited with collaboration and data in mind. For example, a ride-sharing company knows if there is an unusual traffic jam on the way to the airport, information that would be useful for the airline. Conversely, the airline is the first to know if a flight is delayed and who is on board, which is useful for ground transportation companies at arrival. Process design should start with the customer experience in mind and be optimized based on available data from collaborative partners.

 

Technology

Technology is the enabler of simplification and automation that process design alone cannot achieve. For instance, connecting flights add massive complexity compared to direct flights, but technology can help make connections smoother. Mega airport hubs also add time and complexity in navigation, but technology can assist in finding gates or estimating wait times and walking times.

I can foresee five opportunities coming from these trends.

 

Opportunities

1. Personalization: A student and a business traveler don’t expect the same travel experience, nor do a family with several children or an older person with reduced mobility. Personalization means adjusting the service to each persona, such as providing lounge access or wheelchairs.

2. Retailing: Customers typically book a flight first, then a hotel, and then other services. Half book directly, while the other half use a travel agent to compare and combine services. Retailing means that all services—at the airport, in-flight, or at the destination—can be purchased in one place, combined, and adjusted as needed. Technology, including retailing platforms and APIs, makes this possible.

3. Sustainability: Combining personalization and retailing allows the environmentally conscious traveler to select a flight on a new generation aircraft (reducing carbon emissions by X%), using blended biofuels (further reducing emissions), purchasing carbon offsets from projects deploying solar panels (indirectly reducing emissions), finding a lounge that serves vegetarian food without single-use plastics, and booking ground transport in an electric car charged with solar-generated electricity. While the air transport industry is challenging to decarbonize, there are many ways to progress over the next two decades.

4. Servicing: Some customers see irregularities as opportunities to discover new things, like when a bird strike stopped our flight on the runway of Windhoek airport, giving us an extra night in Namibia. However, most people value predictability and smooth operations. When things go wrong, customers expect prompt recovery. Prompt recovery offers every service provider the best opportunity to create a memorable experience and lasting relationship. Generative AI and other tools can provide individualized real-time support at scale in case of changes and disruptions.

5. Quality and Customer Satisfaction: I write these lines on a flight where I’ve just eaten the worst ham and cheese sandwich of my (51-year) life. The opportunity is to let customers order food from airport stores, which offer more choices and quality than this airline, and have it delivered on board. Giving customers choice and transparency by showing ratings on products and services will significantly improve customer satisfaction and airline ratings. Who would ever order this ham and cheese sandwich if they saw it was rated as “criminal”?

 

Conclusion

Customer centricity represents a major change for a process-oriented industry that thrived on attention to operational details. Environmental consciousness represents a massive change for an industry that thrived on combustion engines powered by fossil fuels. Collaboration between multiple service providers and stakeholders represents a necessary change in an industry that was initially national and regulated (like most railways still today). All these changes are happening now. They create uncertainty and fear but represent major opportunities and will lead to significant enhancements for the industry that connects people globally in real life.

Disclaimer: The theme, structure, and writing come from the author. ChatGPT was used to suggest revisions for clarity and engagement, some of which were included. The responsibility for the article remains fully with the author.