Our panel at Future Travel Experience Ancillary & Retailing in Dublin explored the collaboration between airlines, airports and service providers to deliver a frictionless customer experience
Thank you to the four panelists for their expert contributions:
- Caroline Bergstroem, SAS – Scandinavian Airlines
- Carlos Ruiz, A.A.E., IAP, CVG Airport – Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport
- Nick Ashton, Protect Group
- Adrian Keating, family man who’s worked for two startup airlines
We have discussed topics relevant to an airline, an airport and a service provider:
- Collaborate to serve customers better
- Anticipate and manage flight disruptions
- Book and deliver personalized travel experiences
- Aggregate non-air services in the travel offerings
- Optimize the relevance of offers and advertising
My key takeaways from our discussions:
- Customers don’t know who does what between the airline, the airport or the service providers, and don’t care. They expect a frictionless experience and seamless coordination between all parties.
- In case of service disruption, customers expect real-time information about their options and next steps, as well as support and care on site. All parties need to coordinate to fix things when things go wrong.
- The inflight experience is a big opportunity for customers to book services at the arrival airport and beyond. Airports and airport services providers need to collaborate with airlines to feature these services in relevant touchpoints.
- In the case of environment-conscious travelers, airlines and airports can create “green” offerings that reduce emissions and wastes, e.g. by pre-ordering food or by delivering duty-free shopping on arrival.
- Collaboration, coordination and personalization require data sharing within limits of data regulations. Focusing on customers and being obsessed by customer experience should help overcome the natural resistance to sharing information.
These panels with positive and open-minded individuals always give me hope that we can make a difference and see improvements by the time we meet again ☀