SITA surveys confirm rise of self-service as an estimated 560 million plane tickets now sold on-line

SITA also found significant confirmation of this trend in its first-ever Passenger Self-Service Survey (PSS) which it carried out independently last month at three of the world’s busiest airports, Atlanta, Heathrow and Hong Kong where it spoke to passengers about their usage of self-service technology.  These three airports account for some 195 million passengers per year or almost 10% of the two billion passengers who will fly this year.

Passengers using these airports have some of the highest rates of self-service in the world with 52% frequently booking their flights on-line, a number which is expected to rise to 73% in the near future.

Francesco Violante, SITA CEO, said, “The on-line travel revolution has come a long way since SITA developed the first ever internet booking engine ten years ago. Enabling passengers to plan their own trips on the web is now fundamental to the air transport industry and on-line booking is becoming the norm.”

The PSS found that along with obvious factors such as price (66%), schedule (44%) and route (43%), the ability to make your own arrangements on the web is among the most important considerations for 39% of the survey sample, followed by the service offered by the airline, (31%), and previous travel experience, (25%), while airline loyalty was ranked by 23%.

Both the Passenger Self-Service Survey (PSS) and the Airline IT Trends Survey looked at trends regarding take-up of other self-service options made available to passengers such as web check-in and self-service kiosks.

The PSS found that while only  7% of respondents had actually used web check-in prior to travel on the day of the survey,  as many as 72% declared they will use it in the future (44% frequently and 28% occasionally). The Airline IT Trends Survey found that 42% of airlines are now offering web check-in and this percentage will rise to 72% by the end of 2007.

The PSS  also reported that  30% of passengers passing through the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta, Europe’s busiest airport, Heathrow, and Asia’s busiest airport for international traffic, Hong Kong, now use kiosk check-in regularly, compared with the global average of 23% as reported in the Airline IT Trends Survey.

When asked if they had used kiosk check-in on the day of the survey, the average of those who did ran at 13% but with significant variations between the three locations: Atlanta, 26%; Heathrow, 12% and Hong Kong, 6%.

The Airline IT Trends Survey also found great variances in take up of self-service kiosk check-in by region: North America, 39%; EU, 25%; Asia-Pacific, 18%; and Middle East and Africa, 7%.  Frequent kiosk use rates found by the PSS were: Atlanta, 47%; Heathrow, 26%; and Hong Kong, 19%.

 “It is not surprising to see from our Passenger Self-Service Survey that 52% of passengers in three of the world’s busiest airports associate short queues with having a pleasant trip. Self-service helps eliminate congestion and queues in airports. One reasonable conclusion we can draw from these survey findings is that the successful deployment of self-service tools such as kiosks and web check-in, can have an impact on airline customer satisfaction,” said Violante.

There was some commonality between the two surveys on the complexity of airline pricing for on-line bookings. The Airline IT Trends Survey found that this is the biggest business issue for airlines selling on-line.  At the same time, 21% of PSS respondents who did not book on-line said they needed advice from travel agents and 11% said tickets were cheaper off-line.

*The full SITA and Airline Business Airline IT Trends Survey will be published in September. Publication of the Passenger Self-Service Survey (PSS) awaits completion of an additional survey at Dubai  International Airport.

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