Air passengers are adopting technology more on some stages of their journey than others, according to a new report by air transport IT provider SITA.
SITA’s 2022 Passenger IT Insights reveals that 41% of respondents use kiosks and e-gates for identity control and 29% receive mobile notifications for bag collection. Identity control and bag collection show among the highest increases in technology adoption since 2016, when no technology was in use, according to the report.
SITA’s data finds that 87% of respondents have positive emotions about identity control, up 11% from 2016. Similarly, 84% feel positively toward bag collection notification, up 9% since 2016.
SITA CEO David Lavorel says, “The technology-driven end-to-end passenger journey is becoming a reality, as the air transport community continues to digitalize its travel processes and industry operations, accelerated by the pandemic.”
“We are also seeing that passengers are increasingly embracing mobile and touchless technologies across the journey, to make their travel as convenient and seamless as possible.”
However, SITA’s survey finds that COVID-19 verification is a pain point that slows end-to-end automation. When the study was conducted in the first quarter of this year, 60% of passengers were still doing their own research on requirements and 51% were manually submitting documentation.
The report also reveals a lag in technology adoption in the early stages of the trip - check-in, bag tag and bag drop - in favor of manual processing.
Survey respondents plan to fly more from 2023 onwards than they did before the pandemic, anticipating an average of 2.93 flights per passenger per year for business and 3.90 for leisure. Passengers cite ticket prices, health risks and geopolitical risks as barriers to travel.
Roughly half of respondents would like airports and airlines to implement IT solutions to support sustainability, such as monitoring airport environmental performance to reduce emissions and flight path optimization to reduce fuel burn. Nearly all passengers would pay on average 11% of their ticket price to offset carbon emissions from their flight.
The report is based on an online survey conducted in Q1 2022 of 6,448 respondents from 27 countries. Survey respondents had traveled at least once in the previous five months.
SITA has corporate offices in Brussels, Geneva and Amsterdam and regional offices in various countries.