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An airport consultancy, specialized in non-aeronautical revenue and passenger experience.

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  • Articles posted by Steven Steeman
20/03/2023

Author: Steven Steeman

Passenger Experience Expert and Optilyn founder, with an international mindset and a sharp critical view on the world, passionate about aviation, science and architecture.

Why airports and airlines should stay passenger-centric during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Tuesday, 08 December 2020 by Steven Steeman

The aviation industry is one of the industries most affected by the corona crisis. The number of passengers dropped dramatically, to figures from over a decade ago. Airlines and Airports are forced to switch to survival mode. Although it is still important, to make sure passengers feel no less welcome than before the COVID-19 Pandemic.

As the Corona crisis first hit the aviation industry, airlines immediately cut into their flying schedule. Instead of multiple flights, a day between 2 cities, this was reduced to just one or two a day. At the same time, multiple routes were temporarily or permanently closed. At airports, terminals or parts of terminals were closed to answer the fallen demand in air travel. All measures which do not hurt the relationship between the airport, the airlines, and their passengers.

Most passengers that are flying during the pandemic, are passengers that were flying on a regularly basis, also before the COVID-19 pandemic. In other words, frequent flyers, who are often loyal to one or more airlines. These passengers demand high standards and expect to get the pre COVID-19 standards where possible. These passengers constitute a substantial group that will always have the need to fly.

Lowering standards unnecessarily is creating a lot of distrust between the passengers and the airline or airport. That distrust can lead to a decreased passenger loyalty and could cause a drop in passenger numbers for that particular airline or airport, even when the crisis is long over. Saving money on your customers service makes passengers more likely to consider other options. This is true for the occasional traveler, but also especially for frequent flyers who are likely to keep flying. You don’t want these to be taken away by competitors, who keep their standards high. As the saying says: “In times of crisis we find out who our true friends are”.

A crisis not only brings difficulties, but it is also a time full of opportunities. If you manage to exceed passenger expectations, you can bind passengers who were loyal to another airline or airport.  A positive review, a comment on social media, can also influence other travelers.  

In conclusion, even though in crisis, cuts and savings are inevitable, it is still highly important to stay passenger-centric, as the benefits outweigh the costs on when viewed in the long term. In the aviation sector competition is fierce, even in times of crisis. If an airport or an airline takes the wrong decisions, it will cost them even more in the long run.

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  • Published in Insights, Passenger Experience
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Why an outside perspective is essential to successfully enhance passenger experience

Monday, 05 October 2020 by Steven Steeman

A passenger is not a direct customer of an airport, but that does not mean he cannot become one. That is why an airport needs to take a passenger-centric approach and gather insights through the eyes of the passengers. To achieve this, an outside perspective is essential.

Airports that do not focus on their passengers are not only loosing opportunities, but also risk to waste a lot of cost due to pointless investments. In times were non aeronautical revenue is becoming an ever bigger share of an airports’ total revenue, taking a passenger-centric approach is essential to an airports’ success. The first step in this process is to view themselves through the eyes of their passengers in order to get an insight in their passengers and their experiences.

In order to get insights into the experience of passengers, an airport needs help from outside. In fact, it is impossible to evaluate yourself from the inside. It is a natural thing that organisations get a tunnel vision, which makes it impossible to see things clearly. To counteract this natural process, an outside perspective is needed, while it is objective and will counteract bias from the inside, from group thinking, or internal politics. It is easy to see that the view is often clearer from the outside than the inside.

It is verry important that airports select the right partner, which does not carry any internal baggage. These independent firms do not need to be experts in the airports’ day to day operations, but can bring more experience and a broader palette of specializations. Those specialists can serve as a bridge between the airport and its passengers, and will bring airports out of their comfort zone. Because let’s be honnest, nothing realy good has ever been created within our comfort zone.

Finally although an outside perspective is essential, it does not end there. Enhancing passenger experience shall be a joint effort between the airport, its passengers, and external partners.


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  • Published in Insights, Passenger Experience
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Happy Holidays

Friday, 20 December 2019 by Steven Steeman
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  • Published in News, Optilyn
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How climate change will influence the world of air travel

Monday, 16 September 2019 by Steven Steeman

Everyone knows that climate change is warming up our planet. We can already see the effects of this global warming happening around us. Weather patterns around the world are changing and becoming more extreme. Since air travel is very dependent on the weather, the aviation industry is extremely susceptible to the effects of climate change. Airlines and even airports will need to adapt to these changes.

We tend to think that air travel is an all-weather business. However, in winter many flights get delayed or cancelled due to bad weather conditions. What most people don’t know is that extreme heat can also cause flight issues and cancellations. Climate change is increasing the occurrence of heatwaves, changing jet streams, thunderstorms, and other extreme weather conditions that will have an impact on air travel around the globe.

On warmer days, airplanes have a more difficult task in generating enough lift to take off. The warmer the air, the thinner the air is and the more dificult it is to get airborne. To address this, airlines could reduce the takeoff weight by loading fewer passengers and/or cargo into their airplanes. Since operating costs remain unchanged, while profits are lower, the air travel industry will need to find ways to compensate this loss of profit. On extremely hot days, planes may not even be able to take off on shorter runways, as they need more distance to achieve the required speed to take off. Furthermore, some planes even aren’t allowed to fly when temperatures pass a certain threshold. This causes delays and even cancelations which will cost the industry even more.

Here in Western Europe hot summer days usually end with heavy thunderstorms. All over the world, we are experiencing more and more of these extreme weather phenomena. Aircraft are avoiding these weather phenomena and try to fly around them. Even airports stop their operations during a heavy thunderstorm or other extreme weather conditions. It is therefore not suprising that when more of these phenomena occur, more flights will be delayed or even canceled. Which again could lead to profit loss.

Climate change increases the intensity of the jet stream and will cause the position of the jet stream to shift closer to the poles. As a consequence, more and more aircrafts will experience turbulence and these events will be more intense. Airlines are changing their routes to avoid zones with high chances of turbulence, resulting in added opperating costs and longer flight times.

In other words, as a consequence of climate change, air travel is about to get a lot more expensive and less predictable than today. Next to fighting global warming, the aviation industry needs to anticipate these problems by investing in solutions to overcome these new issues. Improved technologies, adapted infrastructure and equipment, together with enhanced operations can help us to minimize the effect of climate change.


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  • Published in Global, Insights
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Where passenger experience surveys fail

Monday, 15 April 2019 by Steven Steeman

Airports and airlines want to create experiences that make their customers stay longer, buy more and positively refer others. To achieve this, it is essential to know what passengers really want and need. But while regularly sending out basic surveys may help, this is not enough to make you really understand your passenger’s needs. Despite their advantages, surveys can be misleading or leave gaps in the insights that airlines and aiports need. Here is a list of ways in which surveys can fall short:

1. Non-response bias

One common problem with surveys is that response rates are low, and you hear mainly from those who are extremely satisfied or extremely bitter about their experience. This is not a representative sample. This bias is called a non-response bias, and occurs because there are distinct differences between the people who respond and those who don’t respond. This can result in misleading or inaccurate data. The higher the response rate of a survey the lower the risk of non-response bias. If not designed correctly, other kinds of biases may also occur. For example,  a five-point rating scale with 3 or more positive rating points will result in ‘false’ positives.

2. Only information from the current customers

All too often, companies only survey current customers. In this way, they find out why they are customers, but learn little or nothing about those who are not customers, and who have found greater value elsewhere. It is therefore extremely important to also collect data from past customers, and if possible even from people who have never been customer before. In this respect, it can also be interesting to hire an outside expert or consultant, as they are experienced and can compare services and standards between different organizations.

3. Difficult to determine what customers want for the future

Asking for feedback on the current services, will only yield feedback on the current way of operating. This is useful for process improvement, but not for future-oriented strategic development. Moreover, it is much easier to determine what customers want now, than what they will want in the future. Customers may not even know what is possible or what they will want in the future. Yet it is vital to determine this and anticipate those future wants and needs.

4. From data to action

While surveys can give you useful information, many organizations struggle with turning these results into action. The results won’t provide you with the next steps necessary to enhance customer experience. Nor will it be clear which issues should be tackled first. Also, the data will tell you what is wrong… but they don’t tell you why. And the why is extremely important in developing new strategies for enhancing passenger experience. When a customer gives you the lowest rating, there is not much you can do with this information, unless you understand the rationale behind this score. The same holds for great scores: you need to know why, so you can replicate the same experience with other customers. Therefore, you will need additional information to understand why your customers are rating you the way they are.

Because of these pitfalls, it is important to include qualitative customer research, like for example in-depth interviews, focus groups, and mystery passenger services, to complement the quantitative data obtained by surveys. These tools provide an integrative view of the customer experience and can uncover valuable insights where surveys fall short. To summarize, the best basis for an effective customer experience strategy is a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches.


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  • Published in Insights, Passenger Experience
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Job Opening: Multi-talented Venturer

Wednesday, 13 February 2019 by Steven Steeman

To help us realize our mission, assisting airports to meet and exceed passenger expectations and to boost non-aeronautical revenue. we are currently looking for a Multi-talented Venturer who shares our values: quality, flexibility, fun, and continuous learning.

We offer you a career path without limitations in a start-up where you have the chances of growing your talents and expertise, as well as gaining international experience. We give you the chance to contribute to the build-up and growth of a dynamic company with customers all over the world.

Read more about this vacancy.

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  • Published in News, Optilyn
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