As part of our programme to promote rail links to airports, airrail NEWS and CGA Experience conducted a Global AirRail Passenger Experience Survey to identify how important these issues are to the air-rail operations. Over 50 AirRail professionals opted to take part in an online survey during April 2011. 68.5% of respondents come from operations or marketing departments or are Board/Managing Director level within AirRail type organisations. There was a mix of large and small organisations who responded:

50% had 500+ employees and the rest fell between 20 and 499. A large proportion of respondents are based in either the US or UK, although we did have respondents from around the globe.

An interesting point was discovered during the survey: “The sector is struggling to establish a consistent approach to passenger experience management at an individual company level, let alone as a collective group of companies delivering a seamless experience.”

The survey was presented at the annual airrail EVENTS conference “The Future of AirRail – Innovations & Modern Technologies” that took place in Riga, Latvia on 18-19 May 2011.

Delegates of the conference stressed that in order to deliver a seamless and integrated travel, international cooperation and partnerships are the key to success. (You can read the conference report on cooperation here>>>).

So in order to achieve a seamless air-rail point to point passenger experience, there has to be consistency among the company leaders on what a great passenger experience is and how to achieve it.

“From the passenger perspective, they want a seamless travel experience, irrespective of service provider or location. They are becoming more demanding and vocal, unafraid of complaint if service expectations aren’t met. Reputations are under constant pressure, often fuelled by social media,” states the survey report.

Global AirRail Passenger Experience 2011 highlights:

• Passenger experience was seen as important or very important to over ¾ of respondents in 2010 and will continue to be so in 2011;
• A formal passenger experience strategy is in place for 68% (agree/strongly agree), although 10% of companies appear to have no formal strategy in place;
• Passenger insights are shared with employees across the organisation for just over half of respondents (agree/strongly agree);
• Only just over ¼ of organisations explore the link between employee and passenger satisfaction;
• Almost 2/3 of organisations are tracking how their passengers perceive their experience;
• Despite its rapid growth, just under 1/3 of companies still do not invest in social media.

Download the report here >>>

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