Disabled travelers' journey experience bottlenecks on China Southern Airlines: suggestions and insights

Abstract

This study focuses on the travel experience bottlenecks of disabled passengers served by China Southern Airlines. Based on the theoretical model of accessible travel and the framework of airline service quality assessment, a mixed research methodology (quantitative questionnaire survey and qualitative textual analysis) was used to systematically explore the service short-comings in the three dimensions of physical accessibility, information accessibility and process inclusiveness. The study covered 320 passengers with disabilities (60% physically disabled, 25% visually disabled, and 15% hearing disabled). Combined with SPSS quantitative analysis, it was found that hearing-impaired passengers rated information accessibility the lowest (2.4/5), mainly due to the lack of real-time captioning in safety presentations. Visually impaired travellers had the highest frequency of mentioning the lack of Braille menus on board (15 times). Wheel-chair assistance delays in the check-in process were commonly reported by physically disabled passengers (30% incidence), rooted in defective handover procedures between ground and flight attendants.

Based on the user experience journey mapping theory, the study proposes systematic improvement strategies, including optimising the check-in process, strengthening multimodal information communication (e.g. Braille menus, captioning services), enhancing the humanistic design of facilities (e.g. adjusting the slope of boarding bridges), and suggesting that service inclusive-ness should be enhanced through contextualised staff training and policy implementation monitoring mechanisms. This study provides theoretical and practical references for the construction of a barrier-free service system in the aviation industry.