With the summer surge approaching in the northern hemisphere, travel concerns regarding delayed flights, rising airfares, and airport congestion are not discouraging air travel. Preliminary findings from the 2023 SITA Passenger IT Insights study revealed that 32% of passengers cited flight cancellation anxiety when reserving their next flight. Nearly two out of ten passengers surveyed expressed concern about airport congestion and costly airfares. This was fueled by the fact that 56% of respondents had experienced delays or cancellations and 48% had encountered lengthy airport lines.
However, travellers plan to fly more than ever before. This year, passengers anticipate taking 4.7 journeys on average, compared to 4.2 flights in 2019. This was primarily the result of frequent travellers. The percentage of passengers planning more than 10 flights in 2023 has increased from 6% in 2019 to 10% this year.
David Lavorel, CEO of SITA, stated, “It is encouraging for our industry that passengers want to travel and want to travel more efficiently, despite some of the challenges airports and airlines have faced with congestion over the past year. We cannot ignore the fact that passengers’ decisions are heavily influenced by the overall experience of air travel. With passengers indicating a clear intent to travel more in 2019, the industry would do well to resolve their concerns, such as by increasing automation.
Lavorel emphasised that prior research from SITA indicated that airport and airline CIOs are treating digital transformation seriously. To support digitalization and automation, it is anticipated that the industry’s IT expenditures will continue their constant growth since 2020. The IT expenditures of airlines and airports increased to an estimated $37 billion and $6.8 billion, respectively, in 2012.
In April of this year, SITA surveyed over 6,000 passengers in 27 countries as part of the 2023 SITA Passenger IT Insights. The complete report will be published on September 5, 2023.
Source- Travel daily