The New Action Standard, highlights that despite many airports dedicating money and resources to improving passenger satisfaction, at least a quarter of these invest in the wrong area. This not only wastes budget on misguided spend, but also leads to fails to result in increased passenger spend.
The ineffectiveness of communication between airports and their passengers is affecting their ability to optimise profits and remain competitive in a time where 70% of the world’s airports don’t make profit.
A new white paper from Epinion, one of Europe’s largest aviation market research and consultancy agencies, raises concern at the level at which airports are missing out on non-aeronautical revenue due to communication issues.
The New Action Standard, highlights that despite many airports dedicating money and resources to improving passenger satisfaction, at least a quarter of these invest in the wrong area.
This not only wastes budget on misguided spend, but also leads to fails to result in increased passenger spend.
One of its authors, Kristian Budolfsen, said: “In an airport the passengers that become consumers are the ones who are satisfied. However, my guess is that of the airports that are investing in passenger satisfaction, about 25% are focusing on fulfilling their functional contentment, rather than emotional contentment. This is wrong as 60% of spending is driven by emotional contentment and only 40% driven by functional contentment.”
The New Action Standard suggests airports need to increase communication with passengers to better understand their emotional requirements.
The paper also found that many airports misunderstand how the people passing through their airports spend, and therefore fail to cater to them.
Kristian said: “Optimising non-aeronautical revenue is a huge part of running a successful and profitable airport. But while many airports are very good at identifying and catering to passenger profiles. But they should actually be thinking about their passengers as consumers if they want to understand how they spend and increase this.”
Technology is also proving to be an issue many airports are struggling to tackle. Despite 58% of passengers saying they would use their smartphone for flight status updates if it was an option most airports fail to communicate up-to-date information about their flight process in this way.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
