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Tailoring Air Travel to the Future
The increasing sophistication and availability of information technology gives travelers an unprecedented ability to interface with their airlines to control nearly every aspect of their air travel experience. Carriers are rushing to use that connectivity to garner market share and generate passenger loyalty.
From the time they arrive at the airport until they reach their destinations, air travel represents an interruption in the life of the traveler. People are taken away from work, family, friends, familiar
food, and comfortable surroundings. How can airlines make travel, particularly business travel, as convenient and as seamless as possible?
LANDING IN A NEW SECTOR
“We’re focusing our services on being hospitable, using a hotel-centric model,” says Mike Landers, Managing Director of United Clubs for United Airlines, “specifically in the lounges.” Landers poses a series of questions that challenge airlines to address the needs of the business traveler: Can the passenger eat in the lounge so he can sleep on the plane? Does the customer have what she needs to be comfortable in the lounge? Is there adequate assistance on the ground? What is the airline doing in the air to complete the journey upon arrival? Is the airline taking customers’ feedback to improve or change their experience?
These questions and more will help to shape customer experience as airlines become part of the hospitality sector. In lounges, Landers notes, the hospitality focus starts with the welcome and the greeting and goes through to individual restrooms and food and beverage service. The main theme is giving the customer the opportunity to control his or her own experience, whether the need is for “rest and recharge” or productivity. The lounge space will contain amenities for both, all within one space.
MOVING TOWARD THE MILLENNIAL
Fifty percent of the workforce will be millennials soon, and airlines must prepare for this demographic. Landers says the answer is to “give full options, full transparency. Make every step easy and logical using the latest technology to empower the consumer to make decisions.” Optimizing that experience might entail putting a traveler’s information— loyalty memberships, club and lounge memberships, previous travel experience—all together in one location. “Then there’s the physical aspect of the journey,” points out Landers, “from the arrival at the airport to self-check-in, to checking a bag and using kiosks.” All of these tasks must use tools that are logical and intuitive while remaining in the hands of the traveler.
Even the experience of sitting at the gate needs to be very different. Soon the days of linear bench seating at a gate will be gone, replaced, again, with a hospitable hotel approach, making the gate look and feel very different. The ultimate goal for airlines is to transform the airport experience, and the ultimate response, Landers hopes, is, “Wow, this space was designed specifically for me and what I want.”
INTERVIEW: UNITED AIRLINES
MIKE LANDERS
Managing Director
United Clubs for United Airlines
TECHNOLOGY AT THE FORE
Using your device to remain productive will remain the paramount goal, notes Landers, but he points out three other areas in which airlines are seeking to maximize technology. The first is entertainment—being able to utilize a personal device for a multitude of in-flight entertainment options. The second is printing. “We’re reviewing a technology that allows you to print to the nearest club lounge upon your arrival at your destination.”
The third option involves equipping the airline’s team of customer service professionals with the right tools to make the traveler’s journey complete. Onboard crews will have their own devices so they can know in real time more about consumers in their seats. Landers describes what he means: “If you’re traveling on your birthday or you’re nearing a loyalty milestone, our onboard crews are going to have the ability to surprise and delight you, to make a personal connection with you.”
Air travel has always been first about getting passengers to their destinations, but carriers have long recognized that success is tied to convenience. Today, convenience equals control, and airlines will continue to do everything within reason to let passengers customize their travel experiences to accommodate their leisure and business needs.
“Folks want to get from point A to point B quickly, safely and efficiently. We want to simplify the experience and give as much control as possible to the business traveler from the start of the booking path to completion of that travel experience.”
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