With the global IT outage in July and a summer of strikes fresh on their minds, airline executives shared challenges they face such as access to data, passenger and employee communication and personalization, at a recent event.

Grounded in Iceland, hosted by Plan3, aimed to get into the weeds of airline disruptions, how they are managed currently, how processes could be improved and the role of technology.

Passengers want more communication and “more updates, preferably personalized to their situation,” according to Guðný Halla Hauksdóttir, director of customer service at Icelandair. She added that no information is still information and proactively notifying passengers that there will be no delay can mean a decrease in calls to the team by up to 40%.

But, airlines also need to understand what’s happening within their own operations before communicating with passengers, she added. 

“There’s nothing more annoying than to be the agent in the service center and we have passengers contacting us and being told [their] flight was just canceled. And then they come to the service desk at the airport [and are told] ‘your flight was just delayed.’ It’s the internal communication you build on before you activate some kind of output to the passenger. We need to understand fully what happens inside the company before we start communicating it to the passenger.”

Icelandair originally set up its customer experience team when there were weather-related disruptions one Christmas and it had to manage a group of school children trying to get home. Hauksdóttir shared that the situation meant prioritizing some passengers.

“That can be a very delicate situation, where you have kids traveling with their teacher, going home for Christmas. Imagine the headlines in the news media if that happens. By looking at who is sitting on the aircraft, then you start the prioritization. You need to look at the passenger mix,” she said.

She added that the personalization element is challenging generally but especially when you have customers with connecting flights.

Diederik-Jan Bos, director of operations at low-cost carrier SAS Connect said that getting the “full picture” can be hard because “digital tools are not as evolved as they could be.” In addition, the airline executives shared that having the full information on passengers who have booked via a third party is also a big issue with carriers not always having the means to contact them in a disruption.

A poll of the 39 carriers at the event, which represent about 20% of global passengers, revealed potential solutions to the problem such as providing a QR code for passengers on the website and mobile app enabling passengers to get help and/or update their contact details. Airline executives also suggested a requirement for more information at the time of reservation would help.

Data play

Low-cost carrier Play Airlines said it has less of a data challenge generally when it comes to disruptions because it has only been in operation for three years and has less legacy technology issues to deal with.

Andri Geir Eyjolfsson, chief operating officer at Play, said the company had built a data warehouse from the ground up when it was founded.

“We can easily retrieve all the data. We have a very operational mindset, for example, during disruptions, especially if it’s a major disruption where we’re seeing a potential 10 hours plus of delay or even a cancellation. We have our PR marketing team notified so they can communicate to the market and of course our customer service team.”

Having all the data at hand meant teams can make decisions quickly, he added.

“What we also tend to do during disruptions is over-communicate to the passenger. We’ve seen doing that reduces the amount of claims you get,” he said.

Bos described that access to data as “critical to be able to make those informed decisions” also stressing the importance of taking decisions early in a disruption and getting information out to passengers quickly can mean “big wins.”

“Operational Control Centers, at least from what I’ve seen, are afraid to make that call early. I’ve encouraged my team to make the call early, just inform the passengers. It’s saying ‘this is the decision we have made,’ and owning it and moving forward from that. We should move away from ‘what we might be able to do,’ because it’s very airline-centric thinking, rather than passenger-centric.”

He added that while a little envious of Play having a fresh start, he believes it’s possible for legacy airlines to have some of the same processes and actions but it takes “investment and the right mindset” as well as support from commercial teams.

*The reporter’s attendance at the event was supported by Plan3.