For most people, air travel can be stressful, especially on long-haul flights. Additional complexities and issues like flight modifications, gate changes, delayed baggage, and delayed flights can make things more concerning for passengers. It is the year 2024 and everything is digital nowadays. One way by which airlines can reduce the stress for customers and keep customers updated is by maximizing the usage of mobile applications.
There is a mobile app available for almost every niche and category out there and it is time that airlines make the practical use of mobile applications to improve the air travel experience for passengers. Although several airlines have updated their apps and included new features to their apps, there is still much work that needs to be done. Let us take a look at some reasons why airlines need to improve their mobile apps.
Mobile Apps Dominate the Market
The first reason why airlines should focus on improving their mobile apps is that mobile apps have become the norm worldwide. In any industry that you look at, you will see mobile apps dominating websites and other touchpoints. Research has even shown that a customer’s interaction with the airline’s mobile app can directly influence his/her future bookings with the airline. Since most of the passengers nowadays are tech-savvy, one bad experience can drive them away, especially when they have so many options available.
This includes negative digital experiences such as not being able to retrieve their boarding pass, irregular operations, or last-minute cancellations, all of which can severely hamper a customer’s likelihood of continuing with the airline. Even though the airline is performing well, it is the mobile app malfunction that can push the passengers away and to avoid all of this, airlines must focus on improving their mobile apps.
Improve Customer Communication
Most airlines communicate with their customers either through email or social channels to resolve their issues and communicate important information. However, these are not as convenient for passengers as are mobile apps. An airline’s mobile app can become an essential part of the communication between the airline and passengers to send real-time updates about flight status, weather conditions, booking issues, bag-checking problems, and broken links. This can make it easier for passengers to stay updated about vital information regarding their flight.
In addition, mobile apps can also be used by airlines as a direct and official channel for communicating offers and announcements and airlines like Emirates are using it for this purpose to improve communication with passengers. According to the airline, it sends push notifications regarding official announcements, offers, and alerts to keep the passengers notified.
A Tool For Gathering Valuable Data to Offer Personalization
In the year 2024, gathering some sort of user data is important to gain a better insight into user preferences and provide personalized suggestions. Although airlines already have tons of valuable travel data, they can gather more data and offer personalized travel experiences to their passengers if they focus more on mobile apps. For instance, if a passenger performs a search on a certain city or destination, the airline can benefit from this data and make highly personalized offers to the passenger.
Mobile apps can be used to create a richer passenger persona, which can then be used to offer the best possible offer and experience to passengers. Certain airlines like Etihad Airways have started working on this to provide a more personalized experience to passengers and the airline claims that it offers highly personalized offers and experiences to its passengers, thanks to its mobile app.
Another Revenue Channel
Mobile apps can certainly act as an additional revenue channel for airlines and they can benefit greatly from improving their apps. Although airlines have various channels to sell flight tickets, most of these channels cannot be controlled by airlines, and airlines are limited to what their selling partner can offer. Even on their own websites, airlines are limited to what they can offer to passengers.
By upgrading and properly implementing new features into their apps, airlines can leverage mobile apps to build another revenue channel for them. Whether it is VIP lounge access, seat upgrade, a taxi ride to the airport, in-flight meals, or in-flight WiFi access, airline apps can be used to sell all of these aforementioned things along with selling in-destination experiences and tours, given that airlines started to focus more on mobile apps.
