Innovative passenger flow management at airports

The satisfaction of passengers and the performance of an airport cannot be divorced from each other. To ensure service quality as a performance measurement metric is achieved, the processes at the airport have to be efficient, the airport infrastructure should be kept in good working condition, the amenities and the services they render should be kept at the best of conditions and the people who work at the airport must be focused on ensuring that the customer experience remains positive.

In the travel experience of the passenger from kerb to gate, the airport is very important. Today, air travel can be filled with anxiety. A survey by the International Air Transport Association in 2017 revealed that passengers simply want to get through the airport as quickly as possible at either end of their journey. Only a very few number are flying for the pleasure of it. Passengers want to be able to access instant and comprehensive information about their journey at each stage of their journey, that is, before leaving the home or office, enroute to the airport, at all stages passing through it, and before arrival at the other end.

When the airport performs poorly in the eyes of the passenger, the experience can lead to unhappy passengers which can have a negative effect on the revenue of the airport. Passenger queues and the inconvenience they cause is a challenge airports will have to contend with to do well in the eyes of the passenger. This becomes imperative as travel recovery post- pandemic is looking up. The Airports Council International, the voice of the world’s airports in their world data forecasts now estimates that annual traffic of 2022 was 72 percent of the annual traffic of 2019 and this represented a substantial increase from 2021.

Further, the ACI Airport Service Quality (ASQ) 2022 Global Traveller Survey showed that 86 percent of respondents have plans to travel by air in the year to come. Also 73 percent of travellers had concerns about the future experience at the airport, which tilted towards efficiency in airport processes as a main concern of travellers.

Solutions that came to the fore as a result of the survey were: Remote processing solutions such as mobile check-in and remote bag check-in; self-service solutions at the airport as check-in and boarding; virtual queuing to book a slot at a particular touchpoint at the airport; real- time information related to waiting times at some touchpoints; having to take a specific path depending on the needs; being able to navigate in the airport using smartphone applications; shopping online at the airport such that what is purchased is delivered to the traveller at the airport and self-service check-out store so travellers can complete their own check-out.

In thinking about innovation, African airports should not seek to achieve all goals at the same time. The survey further disclosed that the top three solutions which travellers were most likely to use in the future were: Remote processing solutions such as mobile check-in, home bag tag printing, remote bag check-in among others  (69%); Self service solutions at the airport (72%); and real time information (75%). These data are a guide to action on innovative solutions that will yield maximum impact and also make for a positive passenger experience at the airport.

From a planning and strategy perspective, airport customer experience units should seek to gather rich input from both top and bottom of the organisational chart. The goal setting process must have SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound) goals with a take-off, destination and timeline. They should consider what kind of innovative services their airport should be doing in a brainstorming session. Take a look at services being rendered and consider whether they have been innovative enough to create the right customer experience. Where they seem to be doing well as an airport there should be consideration of further improvements on those innovative services. The customer experience planning process should not shy away from taking a hard look at what is not being done right as well as agreeing on what needs to be done away with.

To ensure our airports give travellers a positive experience and have sustainable revenue streams as travel is set to grow beyond the pre-pandemic level, airports in Africa will need to begin to think of what they can do differently to improve the customer experience.

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