Emotional management is an increasingly important concept to consider in order to improve the passenger experience, but it is not often seen being administered properly.
It is clear to everyone that, nowadays, practically all passengers travelling through an airport are ‘connected’. Whether through a lightweight laptop, a tablet or a mobile phone, they are sure to have the ability to interact with all the information they can access.
For its part, the airport operator's mission is to ensure that all flight operations comply with established plans while facilitating travellers' arrival at their destination without incident and in the best conditions for each individual case. However, in addition to this, in their relationship with passengers, their tasks include time and information management.
It turns out that time is one of the basic tools of the airport business, and I am not referring, on this occasion, to the time management carried out by airlines to reduce their operating costs. I am referring to every minute that a passenger spends in the terminal, which represents an opportunity for consumption (shopping, catering, services) as well as an indirect expense in terms of space occupancy (cleaning, customer service, maintenance, security). The constant movement of people during their waiting time is usually seen by airport managers as a profit and loss account, where minutes are inevitably associated with income and expenditure.
But habits have changed radically. People's time management has evolved significantly in recent years. The prevailing trend today is individualisation and personalisation in almost every aspect of life. It turns out that the mobile phone has become people's centre of information and entertainment and, therefore, a new protagonist for waiting times.
Por otro lado, una adecuada administración de la información que llega hasta el pasajero es básica para su gestión emocional. Las decisiones que las personas toman en un momento dado tienen un componente emocional importante que las puede inducir a actuar de formas muy diferentes ante un mismo acontecimiento. Y tanto a la hora de mover grandes volúmenes de personas, como a la de gestionar aspectos tan extremos como los planes de emergencia o la comercialización de las diferentes áreas aeroportuarias, esto es algo que cobra especial relevancia.
Are airports taking advantage of this simple insight to improve their relationship with the people who use their facilities on a daily basis? Are they aware of the enormous possibilities that current technologies offer for providing personalised and, above all, useful information?
It is relatively common to see all kinds of applications and systems being implemented to deliver information to airport users. However, most projects suffer from being based on what the airport thinks is right (the traditional approach?) rather than assessing what 21st-century passengers actually want.
Con un parque de terminales móviles que disponen de conectividad local de todo tipo (bluetooth y wifi esencialmente) se podrían configurar un buen número de iniciativas tendentes a dotar al pasajero de un espacio individual de ocio e información aeroportuaria de su interés con la posibilidad de personalizar, en cada caso, los contenidos. Y, además, de forma geolocalizada.
No se trata de crear apps, condicionadas por un sistema operativo u otro, sino de ofrecer contenidos, pues cada dispositivo dispone, a buen seguro, de herramientas capacitadas para acceder a todos ellos de una forma u otra.
Un pasajero en tiempo de espera, lo que desea es pasar el rato de la mejor forma posible hasta que salga su vuelo. Desea poder acceder desde su propio terminal a un menú amplio de ocio (música, películas, juegos, noticias, etc.), que se le avise personalizadamente cuando llegue el momento de embarcar, poder hacer una reserva en algún establecimiento de la terminal o disponer del menú de los restaurantes del aeropuerto. Insisto: hablamos de contenidos, no de herramientas.
The secret to success in the relationship between travellers and airport managers lies in the ability to create personalised emotional environments in airports that help passengers feel in their own comfort zone. A few years ago, this might have seemed like a pipe dream, but today, with access to all kinds of technology at a reasonable cost, it is something that any manager can achieve. All it takes is imagination and a desire to ensure that everyone who passes through your airport has a positive experience.
There is a second factor that should not be overlooked, which is the resulting ease with which passengers can be provided with a whole series of rules, instructions or advice enabling them to know how to act in the event of any incident. And all this in real time. In line with the arguments put forward above, a passenger who is better informed and more familiar with the specific circumstances of the airport where they are located will also feel safer and much closer to their comfort zone.
Let us never forget that a satisfied passenger is a goal achieved.
Key topics in this post: operations and technology" at airports.
