Travellers want more self-service technology deployed in airports, according to a recent survey. Findings by the 2012 SITA/Air Transport World Passenger Self-Service Survey revealed that the vast majority of travellers crave independence and control during travel. The key verdict found is that customers want more self-service offerings to reduce their stress levels. The highlights include:
- 89% vote self-boarding as their top technology
- 79% of travellers use websites regularly or occasionally to self- check-in
- 77% of passengers use kiosks to check-in
- 66.6% used a self-service channel to check-in on the day of the survey
- 80% of passengers use both the internet and kiosks
- Mobile check-in and boarding increased in popularity too
Why do people desire self-service technology? According to the findings, the excitement of travelling by plane has been replaced by unpleasant experiences and stress. Airports have become crowded, passenger numbers are rising and security checks have increased. The main reasons causing customers to get anxious and tense are:
- Long waiting times and queues
- Unexpected changes/lack of information
- Lack of control
Tom Knierim, senior manager of marketing and insight at SITA, said: “To understand what can be done to improve travel, we need to understand how passengers feel about travel. “The loss of time is the number one concern. The passenger named lack of info the most challenging. Not having correct information available at the right time or place is a main reason for stress while traveling.” Over 2,500 passengers from more than 70 countries were surveyed and the airports focused on consisted of Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Frankfurt, Atlanta, Abu Dhabi and Beijing. How can Protouch help? Almost all passengers interviewed welcomed the idea of automated self-boarding gates and kiosks for flight transfer. Protouch are making life easier by installing state-of-the-art express lanes…” so you’re appealing to the airline passengers themselves. We have already helped Birmingham International Airport by deploying our Xen X6 kiosks for premium express lane and priority processing. Just check out the case study here for more information. You can take away the stress of queuing for your customers and improve staff efficiency with our Queue Manager solution.