People experience a consolidation of what multiple brands provide. Whether that is an airline, airport or any other touchpoint, the customer experience in travel is viewed as one. If a part of that experience falls below expectations, it carries through to the traveller’s perception of all the organisations involved throughout the journey.
How much of the London Heathrow experience, for example, is down to the airport or the airlines? Airlines typically hold the lion’s share of customer data and don’t share it with airports. Yet there are mutual benefits in sharing between them.
The reality of travel is that it’s too often a negative experience: a mad rush or boring wait at the airport pre-departure; a cramped, uninspiring flight experience; and anxiety, queueing and waiting at your holiday destination.
How can brands work together to improve the experience throughout the customer journey and reap commercial rewards?
The proportion of ancillary income from shops, restaurants, parking and car rental has fallen in recent years, according to ACI World. Yet satisfied passengers are shown to spend 10% more time at the airport and are twice as likely to shop, in a study by DKMA.
In this article, two specific opportunities have been highlighted where small improvements to the customer experience could have a significant commercial benefit for both airports and airlines.
Ryanair has confidently claimed that one day it expects to be able to sell free flights, with the airline making its income from a share in airport revenues. If carriers could negotiate such an arrangement, they would be incentivised to encourage more airport spend and broker better deals on ground rates.
Last minute arrivals cause congestion, delays and a reduced ‘golden hour’ for airport retail.
What if airport time was more rewarding?
A single airport or airline app could trigger incentives from simple digital coupons for free beverages or retail discounts through to exclusive access to areas of the departure lounge, workspaces, high-speed WIFI and in-airport entertainment.
Incentives could be calculated dynamically based on your phone’s location: the earlier you arrive, the greater the reward.
If the airport experience were genuinely more positive and productive, more people would be encouraged to get there early, benefitting both the airports and airlines.
Travellers are encouraged to pay for numerous extras at the point of booking and throughout the build-up to their holiday. This is when people are most price sensitive and won’t immediately experience the benefit of any additional spend.
However, if prompted at the point of frustration (or when in the holiday mood) at the airport itself and activated with limited friction via their phone, the costs would be perceived as less significant and the benefit would be more directly felt.
Many in-airport upgrades already exist, such as Fast Track security and lounge access, but not always through an app and certainly not all through a single app.
Deliveroo is already available at Dubai airport for passengers to order from their favourite restaurants and get delivery straight to boarding gates. Yet it’s not integrated into your airline’s app and there’s no ‘dine-in’ option.
Tiered access to spaces or amenities would transform the all-or-nothing choice of paying for an executive airport lounge or waiting in a crowded departures hall. Many of us would happily pay the price of a coffee and snack to get the equivalent of a ‘premium economy’ experience at the airport.
One major airport frustration is having to discard liquids before you go through security. What if you could collect at an airside Amazon-style locker instead? You could pre-order all your airport shopping (including liquids) and simply pick them up in an instant.
Baggage is another major source of anxiety. Smart, connected luggage solutions give airlines a clear opportunity to stand out and reduce anxiety by giving people regular updates on the status and location of their bags.
These examples show how small changes to the travel experience can add significant value to the customer.
Combining a number of these together in a unified smartphone app would enable both airports and airlines to earn greater revenue per passenger, better customer satisfaction and ultimately greater customer loyalty.
Airlines that implement such experiences will be in a much stronger position to negotiate better ground rates with airports.
Airports would not only improve the spend per passenger, but the data and ownership they have on people passing through their terminals, with airports currently reporting that they have data on less than 20% of their passengers.
The air travel market is growing, yet it’s highly competitive and low-margin. Airlines and airports can work together to deliver a standout customer experience, drive greater market share and open up new revenue streams.
A similar situation is also emerging in accommodation. The aggregators and technology platforms like Booking.com and Airbnb are owning more data than hotels and other accommodation providers.
There is an opportunity for data and transactional service sharing in this sector, too. What if you could order and pay for everything on your room via a single smartphone app, for example, and use it as your room key, too?
This would benefit both small accommodation providers and larger chains. Supporting an open data approach for third parties to connect to rather than expecting guests to use a different app for every chain would attract a wider pool of digitally-demanding consumers. Higher adoption of a transactional digital service throughout a traveller’s stay would undoubtedly grow spend per customer.
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Jon Reay has more than 15 years’ experience working in digital agencies. He has led pioneering digital and customer engagement strategies for brands including Lloyd’s of London, Manchester City FC, Team GB, IKEA, UK Cabinet Office and Tourism New Zealand. He has experience working with a range of digital technologies and adds significant value to both IT and marketing strategies for clients. Reay has spoken at events and conferences in Europe and the US and previously worked at Sapient and other worldwide agencies. At Great State, he leads the strategic agenda with clients and their businesses, helping them identify a vision for digital and translate that into an executional strategy, provide in-depth measurement, analysis and ongoing optimisation. Great State is a brand technology agency, helping brands in all sectors achieve greater loyalty by thinking meaningfully about the entire customer experience. Founded in 2018, it is a merger between digital agency e3 and strategy consultancy LSU (London Strategy Unit) and has worked for brands including Adidas, Arla, Mondalez, Honda, the Royal Navy and Orange.
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