According to air transport IT provider SITA’s 2022 passenger insights research, there has been an increase in passenger use of mobile devices for booking, onboard the aircraft and for bag collection in Q1 2022 compared to Q1 2020, while automated gates saw increases in adoption for identity control, boarding and border control.
The company said the results "clearly reflect" the accelerated digitalisation of air travel since the outbreak of the pandemic and passengers’ willingness to adopt technologies.
However, it said health verification is a "pain point" which has slowed end-to-end automation. In Q1 2022, despite some uptake of technology at this stage, more than half of passengers were still doing their own research on health verification requirements and manually submitting documentation.
SITA’s research also found reduced technology adoption in the early stages of the journey (check-in, bag tag and bag drop) in favour of manual processing.
Asked about comfort levels with biometric identification throughout the journey, passengers scored an average of around 7.3 out of 10 (with 10 representing most comfortable), most likely reflecting their desire for ease of travel moving forward from the pandemic.
David Lavorel, chief executive of SITA, said: "It is exciting to see demand recovering and even surpassing pre-pandemic levels, not just for leisure but also for business travel.
"We are seeing that the technology-driven end-to-end passenger journey is becoming a reality, as the air transport community continues to digitalise its travel processes and industry operations, accelerated by the pandemic."
The study also revealed almost all passengers would pay on average 11% of their ticket price to offset carbon emissions from their flight.
Asked if the air transport industry is doing enough to become more sustainable, more than half of passengers either think not, or don’t know, suggesting there is room for industry improvement in communicating sustainability initiatives and actions.
