Top priorities for passengers: More control of air travel, less waiting at airports, shows IATA survey

The 2019 survey results were based on 10,877 responses from passengers across 166 countries, said IATA in a statement.

The top passenger priorities of passengers include:•   

Having more personal control over their journey via their smart phone.

Being able to use biometric identification to speed up travel processes.

To be able to track their baggage

Maximum wait times of 10 minutes for baggage collection and immigration / customs

Access to Wi-Fi on board at 34,000 ft.

Passengers want to use their personal device to control more aspects of their travel journey from booking to arrival. An airline app was the preferred method of booking for passengers from one of the world’s largest aviation markets, with 24 percent of travellers from North Asia preferring this method.

It was also the second most popular choice among passengers in the Middle East, favoured by 14 percent of travellers. Booking through an airline website, although less popular than in 2018, remains the method of choice for most travelers globally at 39 percent.

Using a smartphone was also identified by more than half of passengers — 51  percent —  as their preferred method of check-in.

This was a 4 percent increase over 2018.Up to 72 percent passengers also wanted to be kept informed throughout their journey via travel notifications sent to their personal device.

SMS remains the preferred notification option for 39 percent of passengers, but this trend has been decreasing since 2016. Conversely, preference for receiving information via a smartphone app has increased by 10% since 2016 and is now the method of choice for one third of passengers.

The survey found that 83 percent of passengers want to receive information on the status of their flight and 45 percent would like information on their baggage.

Passengers also asking for information to help them plan their passage through the airport with 45 percent wanting to know wait times at security and border control and 37 percent wanting to know wait times at customs.

The survey found that 70 percent of passengers are willing to share additional personal information including their biometric identifiers to speed up processes at the airport.

This increases in correlation with the number of flights taken per year. The highest support for this (76 percent) is among fliers who travel for business, more than 10 times per year.

Up to 46 percent of passengers would prefer to use biometric identification instead of a paper passport for their journey and 30 percent would opt to use a biometric token to board the plane, according to the survey.