The U.S. airport industry’s passenger sentiment score dipped by only 0.4% as passenger sentiment remained fairly steady week over week.
September 9, 2022 @ 10am EDT
During the past 7 calendar days, the U.S. airport industry’s overall sentiment score declined by 0.4% to 8.33 from 8.36. The pre-pandemic historical average industry benchmark was 8.3 out of 10. It appears that airports are starting to make headway vis a vis providing a better customer experience. Also, passenger survey responses continue to indicate that there is currently a higher tolerance for inconveniences. In other words, people have been conditioned to have more patience for the various problems and issues that may arise when traveling.
GlidePathCX continues to engage millions of airport passengers each week by reaching passengers on their mobile and laptop devices while they are in the airport. The majority of these electronic communications contained a Passenger Experience Survey, with overall sentiment measured on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best).
GlidePathCX’s Sentiment Score was calculated for each airport on a near real-time basis via the company’s proprietary Insight360SM dashboard. The resulting data was then aggregated to calculate a sentiment score for the U.S. airport industry as a whole.
For the week ending September 9th, the percentage of business traveler respondents was significantly higher than in previous weeks: 19.9% for business travelers vs. 80.1% for leisure travelers. In previous weeks the percentage of business travelers has hovered at around 20%.
Sir Richard Branson has focused on customer experience as a central component of reputation and brand building for his business empire. According to Branson, “The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to meet them, but to exceed them – preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.” Airports and airlines alike should endeavor to find ways to exceed expectations.
GlidePathCX will continue to closely monitor airport passenger sentiment and related insights and trends.