Digitalization in In-Flight Service of Airlines X. New Digital Designs to Enhance Customer Experience

Abstract

The fast-paced development of digital technology is making a strong impact on customer experience, and it is important for businesses to respond to the change. On this front, the aviation industry is well-positioned to benefit from digitalization with access to data covering nearly every aspect of the customer experience. By adopting a hybrid budget/full-service business model, Airlines X has been able to reach a wider segment of customers, but at the same time the hybrid model presents a barrier to flight attendants' work efficiency and efficient service operation, and the customer experience must be tailored to be compatible with the strict safety and regulatory requirements. In terms of safety, especially as a result of Covid-19, digitalization in the aviation sector must promote contactless processes.

Currently, the approach by airlines in digitalization is mostly business centric. Using interviews with customers and cabin crew, we take a human centric approach to service design of digitalization for the in-flight service of Airlines X taking into consideration both the customer and employee expectations. Specifically, we construct customer and cabin crew Personas, and deploy the future triangle theory, case study methods, customer service journey method, and service blueprint method to create a foundation for the service design of a new in-flight service digital concept for Airlines X. The feasibility and applicability of the proposed service design is assessed using feedback from the In-flight Service Representative of Airlines X. Furthermore, representatives from Airlines X evaluated the possibility of applying the prototype to their Future Development Plan.

The design thinking with a human-centered design lens of this study focuses on the user experience. In practice, airlines must balance the trade-off between enhancing the customer experience and optimizing costs. A detailed understanding of the business and technology aspects of design thinking, including e.g. a cost analysis of implementation, is left for future research.

Service design recommendation: The aviation sector is recovering financially from the Covid-19 pandemic, and the highest priority driving force behind business development currently is improving profitability. The testing phase of this study revealed that the service design should indeed focus on cost efficiency. The wider context of a human-centric digital service design about the user experience should be to make operations cheaper, faster, and more efficient with a clear impact on the financial bottom line. In addition, the feedback from the Commissioner indicates that the design should be balanced between customers and employees instead of focusing solely on one stakeholder group.