Contribution to knowledge 163

The motivation for this research was to understand what passengers do during an airport experience, with a passenger focus. The difficulty with the previous perspective of the passenger experience is that it comes from what airport management deem as important to passengers. A gap in the understanding of the problems passengers face comes from the absence of a focus on the passenger. Many authors have stated that taking a passenger focus is how the experience can be better understood and will lead to improvements to the passenger experience (Kazda & Caves, 2000a; Caves & Pickard, 2001; Yeh & Kuo, 2003; Goetz & Graham, 2004; Fodness & Murray, 2007; Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, 2008).

The research questions developed from this gap in the knowledge of the passenger-centred view of the airport experience (Sections 4.3). In answering these questions, the research demonstrated the gap that exists between what is deemed important by airport management and by passengers of the experience.

The research shows that passengers undertake a wide range of activities to get through the whole departures airport experience. Previously, the understanding of the passenger experience was limited to the activities of queuing and interacting with staff at the four processing domains (Meyer & Schwager, 2007; Airport Council International, 2008; Consumer Protection Group, 2009). Discretionary periods were

164 Chapter 10 Conclusion largely unknown (Figure 9.1). Therefore, the majority of the passenger experience was not researched prior to this research project.

The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies (2008) suggests that a whole airport, passenger-focused perspective would provide innovative solutions to airport problems and procedures, and this research has validated this prediction. By taking this focus thirty different activities were identified, which were categorised into eight taxonomic activity groups that make up the TOPA. The primary contribution of this thesis has been the development of the Taxonomy of Passenger Activities (TOPA) and the interactions that occur between the groups, while also successfully answering the research questions raised at the beginning of the thesis (Section 5.3).

The TOPA confirms that the current focus developed from a management perspective is inadequate to improve the experience passengers have. The focus concentrates on reducing queuing and processing time to improve the passenger experience. The reduction of queuing and processing were shown in Chapters 6 and 8 not to be particularly important to passengers. When queuing or processing time was less than thirty minutes, there was no negative effect on passenger experience. A focus on queuing and processing time, therefore, will not contribute to a better passenger experience. This project has shown that this focus fails to improve the passenger experience.

The knowledge of the TOPA and its interactions considers the passenger experience in a different way to past research. It demonstrates how the activities passengers undertake work together to get them through the airport. It also shows which activities assisted in processing, which hindered processing, and which can be exploited to improve the experience passengers have in the future (Figure 9.11, Figure 9.12, Figure 9.13 and Figure 9.14).

The TOPA captures issues relevant to the experience with the focus on the passenger. It has shown how passengers can use their time between processing activities to prepare for future domains. Passengers were observed to prepare documents, such as their OPC, while sitting at a cafe and consuming food and beverages bought at the airport. Such preparation is beneficial to airport processing, as passengers do not delay other passengers while they attend to this at the

Chapter 10 Conclusion 165 processing domains. Furthermore, when passengers prepare documents while sitting at a cafe and consuming food and beverages, they are linking preparatory activities with consumptive activities. This has the added benefit of increasing spending within the retail outlets and thus increasing airport revenue, while also improving processing efficiency and passenger experience. This is a “win-win” outcome for airports.

The introduction and use of technology is also promoted by the management perspective as a way of improving processing at airports (Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, 2008; International Air Transport Association, 2009). Research associated with self-service technology at airports does not appear to discuss any possible negative effects that may occur through its introduction. Instead the research only describes the improvements to the passenger experience. The TOPA and MOPA capture issues that challenge the assumption that there will be no negative effects on the passenger experience with self-service technology introduction.

The queuing group is the only TOPA group addressed in the previous literature that discusses self-service technology (International Air Transport Association, 2010; Koronowski, 2010) The MOPA shows that although queuing is involved with introducing changes to the processing, through self service technology, it is not the only group that should be considered. A change to processing also affects social, entertainment, preparatory and moving activity groups. For example, introducing self-service technology at check-in will reduce interactions with staff, resulting in the loss of the vital preparatory information needed for the domains downstream of check-in, namely security and customs. This, in turn, will increase processing times at these downstream domains as fewer passengers will be prepared for what is expected of them, previously gained through the preparatory interactions.

Results show that there was, on average, a difference of 6 minutes between prepared and unprepared passengers at security and at customs. If more passengers are unprepared for security and customs due to not being provided preparatory information at check-in, the benefits of making check-in self service will be lost and there may be significant delays when self-service becomes available. The TOPA identifies this problem before it occurs and so airports can contemplate ways to

166 Chapter 10 Conclusion inform passengers of how to prepare when interactions with check-in staff are removed.

Interactions with staff members also provide experiences that exceed passengers’ expectations. Short social conversations at the check-in domain led to passengers associating that domain with a positive experience. These opportunities to improve a passenger’s airport experience, therefore, will be lost with the addition of self-service technology.

The contributions to knowledge discussed above were achieved through the methodological approach used in the project. The observation of passengers, augmented with retrospective interviews, has been demonstrated to be a robust technique that provides a complete understanding of the airport experience with the focus on the passenger. More specifically, the observation of passengers and the coding of the various levels of activity (macro- to activity-levels [section 5.6]) have enabled this full understanding. This technique of applying a multi-level analysis to understand customer experience has been previously suggested in the literature (Gentile et al., 2007), but was not developed until the activity-centred approach was used by the author and his colleagues (Kraal et al., 2009; Popovic et al., 2009; Kirk et al., 2012; Livingstone et al., 2012). The activity-centred approach contributes significantly to an understanding of the customer-perspective, and can be applied to other airports. Although there are variations between airports world-wide the approach is focused on activities.. The activities necessary to get through the airport are similar, in that every international airport requires passenger to check-in, go through security and customs and then board their flight. While the procedures may vary, the activities a passenger needs to carry out to complete them are similar (Section 4.2.3). The approach provides a starting point to undertake a deeper understanding of the experience, which allows comparisons to occur to find the unique features of airports world-wide.

The approach can also be applied to other industries. It can be used to understand the customer experience in the entertainment industry. For example, many aspects of the airport are similar to the experience of customers of theatres. Theatre customers must arrive before a specific time, they often have time they need to fill before the show starts, and they must find their way through the building to

Chapter 10 Conclusion 167 their seat. An activity-centred approach could be used to understand what is important to the theatre customers and how the experience could be improved.