Why the Aviation Sector Needs Ubiquitous, Invisible Tech Solutions To Reach New Heights

It is no secret that the aviation sector has been put through its paces since international travel resumed in 2021.

Holidaymakers and business travelers made up for lost time, booking trips and getaways in their droves as rules around international travel relaxed. This year, airlines took more bookings than they - and their operating airports - could handle, leading to scenes of chaos at many international hubs with acute labor shortages.

Last minute issues with documents, rule changes, and ‘denied boardings’ have deeply frustrated customers and left the sector in desperate need to win back their confidence.

It will not be straightforward. As with many other crucial sectors of the economy that keep society moving, the aviation industry continues to operate with skeletal staffing capacity, a problem which the pandemic exacerbated with far fewer workers coming back than anticipated. From ground handling staff to pilots, human resources are being stretched. Airlines need to do more with less.

On top of this, financial debts and inefficient legacy technology and systems are problems that are adding stress to passengers and eroding public confidence – as we advance towards the festive flying season, the sector risks more and more travellers losing faith in their chosen airline and becoming disgruntled at their overall experience of international travel.   

In the UK, the government has already intervened. Recently, the country’s Civil Aviation Authority and Department for Transport distributed a joint letter outlining the need for airlines to improve communication with passengers in advance of air travel, to give them confidence before passengers turn up at the airport.

Carriers have been advised to provide their customers with travel checklists and pointers to help them prepare for their journeys, and some have already answered this call and implemented partial document processing solutions for each trip, to help streamline what can be a clunky departures terminal experience.

These are important steps, but the industry needs to collectively go much further to reassure passengers that there will be no nasty surprises in store at the airport. Indeed, to truly build that confidence back up, a new technology framework that is simple to use and can serve every airline, at every airport, is needed.

(Dis)connected aviation: What is vendor lock and why is it a problem?

Currently, a problem known as vendor lock stands in the way.

It’s a similar phenomenon to the frustration users experience with Google and Apple operating systems. They do not serve a universal audience, and so benefit their specific users while creating layers of friction, complexity and sometimes frustration for others.

In the aviation sphere, this can be seen in endeavors to create and implement document processing solutions, and to match documents to travel requirements. So far, these activities have been conducted in siloes, resulting in a fragmented ecosystem made up of components and platforms that only work for select groups of passengers who travel with certain airlines or book through certain companies.

Indeed, existing loyalties between vendors and their airline clients mean that systems are being built that benefit the vendor as opposed to the universal end user or passenger. For example, when passengers take a connecting flight – their journey may involve multiple airlines using various documentation systems and processes in and around airports. As a result, the passenger experience is likely to be inconsistent and complex.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that these fragmented documentation systems are not being built with interoperability in mind. Carriers operate on different technology stacks, meaning there is a huge array of fragmented tech at a system level that refuses to ‘talk’ to any other airline tech as part of the passenger journey. 

The impossible balance act: trimming costs while maximising value

While the ‘passenger experience’ argument for developing ubiquitous solutions is clear, airlines also need to consider the strong financial case for going away from traditional industry vendor solutions .

There are several layers of operating costs that airlines absorb. Typically, asides oil, fuel and emissions, the largest cost bases are 1) employees and 2) processes related to passenger handling in-airport. Combined, they can amount to around a third of an airline’s overheads, which eats into profits if passenger revenues do not keep pace, and government fines on passenger documentation are not checked.

Tech systems which add layers to these processes (such as an app) and create additional workloads for employees (such as QR code scanning or multiple queue management) across different functions all contribute to hiking operating costs even further.

Airline IT in and of itself is reportedly a low-spend area. However, the implications of this minor cost base can be enormous, and siloed passenger documentation management, when matching documents to travel rules, is a perfect example.

Tech vendors serving the aviation sphere are notoriously stubborn players. They are often longstanding incumbents whose goal is to grow their own profit base without taking risks. There is an unwavering belief that their systems are the best in the business, making the idea of cross-industry collaborations impossible to entertain politically, and unfeasible to deliver practically.

Competing in the new era of passenger expectations

To win, airlines must improve passenger experience - and we have the research to prove it. In a recent survey conducted by Zamna, more than nine in 10 respondents (91%) said that airlines should do more to encourage people to fly, whether that be through providing support for managing complex travel riles, guaranteeing no denial of boarding or offering a document checking service to streamline the departures process.

We probed further into the issue of document checking. Here, 84% of travelers surveyed stated that airlines should do more to ensure travel documentation is in order, and meets the ever changing destination regulations. Furthermore, 58% said that airlines need to provide a full document checking service that can be completed with documents matched to travel rules well before passengers arrive at the airport.

It need not amount to an extra strain on airline operating costs. More than three quarters of passengers (76%) said they would be willing to pay up to £10 on top of a ticket price for a regulatory travel document checking service.

This evidence points to the conclusion that airlines that choose to invest into invisible, ubiquitous, cross-airline tech solutions for the benefit of their passengers will stand out from competitor carriers and help to encourage more people into flying with them. It’s a simple equation: confident passengers = more bookings = improved bottom line.

Can disruption go too far? If something is invisible to BOTH passengers and staff, it will be more successful

This is not to argue that airlines should hurtle headfirst into a root and branch upheaval of their current documentation processes. Indeed, carriers need to be careful not to impact the behaviors or processes for both passengers and airline staff when developing new solutions.

IATA’s Travel Pass was inked as a solution that had all the hallmarks of a universal system built for everyone. A mobile application that helps travelers to store and manage their verified certifications for COVID-19 tests and vaccinations, it ticked all the interoperability boxes with 250+ airlines in IATA asked to support it.  

However, the system ultimately failed to be adopted because it disrupted airline staff and passenger behaviors, and was never even attempted to be adopted by governments as Border Force would not consider disrupting their staff processes. Both passengers and airline staff faced steep learning curves that led to a wide and divergent range of responses depending on the individual’s tech proficiency, access to smart technology, and desire to complete dozens of steps and friction to create their profiles. Cost was also a problem because airlines had to train their  people and implement new TravelPass processes, as well as buy more airport real estate where needed, in order to implement the new solution. 

There are some positive takeaways from the IATA Travel Pass project, however. It certainly resembles the kind of creative mindset that is needed to break down the tech siloes and vendor lock currently holding the industry back.  

With 2023 approaching fast, the aviation sector cannot afford another year of ‘doing nothing’ or putting the burden on passengers to make up for the limitations of existing fragmented systems.