High-tech is taking over airline passengers’ travel experience. A just released survey by airport and airline IT provider SITA and Air Transport World concludes “Passengers want to be able to use technology at every point of the journey, and many already do.”
The numbers tell the tale. 97 per cent of us take along a smartphone, tablet or laptop when we fly. One in five travels with all three.
Among the fastest growing arena is airline apps. SITA says 76 per cent of passengers surveyed at the planet’s top 30 airports are using them, and 43 per cent say those applications make a definite difference in their travel experience. Probing deeper into why passengers adore airline apps, the survey finds 53 per cent want personalized alerts about delays sent straight to their phones, 57 per cent want airport maps and directions and a full half use their smartphones as electronic boarding passes.
The next frontier in airline passenger IT is wearable technology. 77 per cent of passengers say they’d be “comfortable with the use of wearable tech to help them on their journey,” things such as smartwatches and Google Glass.
Passengers want their gadgets, be they wearable or just portable, to work harder in the air too. SITA says 56 percent of passengers crave the kind of connectivity that lets them use their smartphone, tablet or laptop for in-flight entertainment. 54 per cent want to communicate via in-flight email or text, even make and receive phone calls.
In-flight phone calls are a hotly debated issue, one which shows no sign of cooling off. Some passengers are particularly passionate about not allowing in-flight phone calls on smartphones.
Once upon a time, airline passengers didn’t want to share personal or location information with their service providers. But SITA’s survey says nowadays 72 perc ent are willing to do just that in order to get more “personalized” services. But in a prepared release, SITA concedes, “There is still a reluctance to share information to receive commercial offers.” Less than a third of surveyed passengers are interested in that sort of exchange. When it comes to giving up information to ease the trip, however, some 40 per cent are willing to have their location tracked in order to reduce things such as queue time at the airport.
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