Rethinking the Customer Experience

"We need to make passengers totally passionate,” said Phillipe Rainville, President and CEO, Aéroports de Montréal, “and improve our bottom line.” Two basic ideas that have so many ways to be achieved – and ideas were not in short supply at this session.

Huntley Lawrence, Director of Aviation at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is no stranger to the creative process. “Based on what our customers were telling us, we had to do something different at our airports,” he said. There were three basic core things on the agenda we had to change for the customer experience: (1) Investing in infrastructure, meaning “$25 billion in 10 years, said Lawrence; (2) Laser focus on customer experience; (3) Governance reform, such as accountability relationships with all of their partners. “We want to be able to resolve issues before they become problems,” said Lawrence, which means supplementing ACI's Airport Service Quality (ASQ) surveys with other feedback options.

Craig Richmond, President and CEO, Vancouver Airport Authority, provided a scenario a facial recognition process combined with other safety and tracking measures would benefit the traveler, the ariports and the airlines.  He said that our goal should not be to add more steps, and facial recognition can do that. “I think we can get there,” he said. “A lot of different parts are moving there... We are still back in the ’70s with making everyone walk through metal detectors.” He mentioned that, at Vancouver,  they are "always looking for an edge” and “you have to take a leap to improve things." 

At the City of Abbotsford, that “leap” is well underway. According to Parm Sidhu, Airport General Manager, City of Abbotsford, it is either “disrupt or be disrupted. If we don’t disrupt, someone will disrupt us.” They are an ultra-cost airport and are striving to be an autonomous airport. “Our motto is get in and get out,” said Sidhu.

The opposite is true at El Paso. Monica Lombraña, Managing Director of Aviation and International Bridges at El Paso International Airport, said, “Ultimately we are all there to serve or benefit the passengers in some form or fashion.” They incorporate a lot of ASQ surveys, and “we design and plan around a strong customer service experience,” said Lombrana.

The bottom line, regardless of which path to customer serivce your airport takes: “Our facilities are icons and representative of our cities and our countries,” said Huntley.