by

Marissa Wu

Anita Rani

Xinyi Gu

Myles Domingo

Chibuzor Obiorah

Scenario: You have just spent $2,500 on an airplane ticket in order to take a vacation and escape your stressful, busy, and mundane life for a few days. As your flight date approaches, you are stressed and feeling dread thinking about your time at airports instead of feeling joyous to finally take off for a vacation. You are worried about the TSA going through your luggage, not knowing long you will spend at the airport, having to spend money on expensive foods, and so many other troubles airports bring along.

The Needs and Significance  

Ask anyone and they will be able to recall at least one airport-related mishap. There are so many unpleasant experiences at the airport one has to go through— long lines, luggage loss, customs, etc. Across our interviews, we found people were stressed out because of these experiences. Hence, it is important to delve deeper into these problems so that people experience less stress and anxiety.

In addition to our user interviews, we researched online to get an idea of what the wider general public felt could be improved about airports.

One of the articles we read was “10 Simple Ways to Survive the Airport Experience”, published in 2016 by The Telegraph, a UK website. We chose this article because it offered an international perspective on the issue, so we could learn more about the airport experience outside of the US. Some problems described include expensive parking, large physical distance between security and the gate, and long lines at almost every step throughout the process. These problems, especially time-consuming waits in endless lines, echoed the ones we identified through our interviews.

We also read “Issues and Challenges for Airports in the New Millennium”, a report by James M. Crites, the Deputy Executive Director of Airport Operations at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. We chose this report because it offered insight on the internal struggles of airports, something we would want to consider even when implementing a solution that mostly operated from the traveler’s perspective. We learned that airports are striving to adapt to the expectations of the 21st century, which include faster service and automated or digital communication. This may redirect our future solution to a digital platform. Additionally, we learned that federal budget cuts have been made to the airline industry since the 90’s— this showed us that we should ideate solutions around something economically-friendly for both travelers and airports to implement. Most significantly, the report focused on the issue of airport capacity on both the micro- and macro-levels. In other words, airports are concerned about improving the efficiency of coordinating flights. From a more general perspective, this sentiment about efficiency is reflected in our user interviews. Finally, the report stated that demand for air travel has grown six times faster than ground modes of transportation and four times faster than the US’s GDP since 1960— this reinforces the significance of the airline industry, as well as the importance of dealing with airport issues.

We conducted some quantitative research by reading “Status of Air Travel in the USA”, a presentation by John P. Heimlich, the Vice President and Chief Economist of Airlines for America. This presentation displayed data from 2015 regarding the average American airline traveler. We learned that:

81% of the adult US population has flown before.

Traveler demographics were pretty even across genders and age, with a 50/50 split for gender and 30-35% per age group (18-34, 35-54, 55+).

On average, travelers took 4.8 trips (round-trip flights)  in a year.

63% of all trips were domestic flights.

19% of flyers were enrolled in TSA PreCheck, while 13% were enrolled in CBP Global Entry.

1. TSA-directed procedures, like security checks, are particularly stressful.

2. Increasing automation/digitization inside the airport improves user satisfaction.

3. Long lines, especially the unpredictability of how long one will need to wait in line, are a  major user concern.

4. Lobby areas do not contain enough seating or outlets for flyers who are awaiting their  flight for longer periods of time.

5. People would rather pay for convenience, and that willingness is often exploited.

6. There is an overall sentiment that airports operate at lower efficiency than what is possible, contributing to traveler frustrations.

7. Removing items for security checks is challenging as travelers juggle several bins at once and try not to hold up the line.

8. Communication, through signs and the intercom speaker, can be improved.

9. People tend to experience the most stress around interactions and activities with others, like shops and the TSA. While factors like the environment are important in the overall airport experience, it may be most impactful to mainly focus on redesigning these activities.

10. Airports have established themselves as automatically associated with stress. Breaking this stereotype will probably take more time and effort than is within the scope of a single solution.

Through our research and synthesis, we were able to identify 3 main problem areas to focus on: increasing automation, shortening wait times, and providing utilities like more seating and outlets.

Brainstorming Solutions:

1. Employing more TSA Staff:

            TSA is one of the major inconveniences experienced in the airport. Although it’s the most important part of the airport people still find it inconvenient. Often it is seen that there are fewer staffs attending to a large number of flyers which increases the time spent there. Employing more staff will reduce that time.

2. More Space/Infrastructure for the TSA procedures:

            In addition to the increase of more TSA employees, a larger space will be required to accommodate and assist more people at the same time.

3. A better time estimate of when to be in the airport:

4. Having two separate lines for TSA check:

              One for people with no bags and another for people with more stuff.

5. Faster Check-in for checked baggage:

              Since most airlines now allow you to print out your boarding card at home or have the details available on your mobile, check-in is one part of the airport experience that has become more bearable in recent years. For people with bags that have to be checked-in, it is a little bit harder. The creation of more automated machines to help individuals like this will be very helpful.

6. More TSA Pre-Checks:

              An article on Conde Nast Traveler stated that  In July of 2018, 94 percent of TSA PreCheck passengers waited less than five minutes in a security line.” If more airline participates in TSA Pre-checks and people get more educated on it, the time spent in line at the airport will be reduced drastically.