A tale of two airports

The media has been telling the tale of two airports for sometime now about how one is getting it right and one wrong. As a prospective traveller trying to find out whether I will be able to travel, I thought I’d take a look at the online user experience of these airports and how they are keeping travellers updated and confident that they will not be spending Christmas Eve at the check-in counter.

Airport websites

Heathrow, the one experiencing most problems, has a prominent message on the homepage; it might be a lot to digest, but it provides useful and detailed information on weather conditions and current airport operations. However, their suggestions on what to do are limited to the usual ‘Check with your airline’ and ‘Do not leave home until your flight is confirmed’. What if I am already on my way to Heathrow? What if I am in Heathrow right now? Who is going to notify me of any changes?

They also provide a ‘Live flight’ functionality to check the status of your flight. If this is shown as ‘Contact airline’, a link to the airline contacts would have made taking the next step quicker and easier. The website provides a list of airline contacts, but it might take you more than a few minutes to find the one you need as the list is long and there is no search/filter functionality.

Overall, they seem to do their best to keep travellers updated on the situation. However, they could better inform on, and facilitate, next steps so that travellers are not left wondering what to do.

Gatwick airport website takes a slightly different approach: their updates are concise, they provide re-booking tips and links, and an apologetic note showing empathy with travellers.

Airports and social media

Heathrow provides a Twitter service. I had a quick look,  it seems up-to-date but it mostly provides the same information as the website. It answers to tweeting travellers, but these could be more relevant to their situation (e.g. if you are telling me to contact my airline, then provide me with their contact or a link to your list of contacts page).

Gatwick uses Twitter in a different and more engaging way. Travellers receive updates on their operational status but also a mash-up of tweets generated by the airlines operating in Gatwick. A quick and efficient way to keep them informed in such time-sensitive situations.

Gatwick tweets also provide relevant links and location-specific content, e.g. “If you are travelling to us by car be aware of the icy road warnings across the South East” or “A useful list of train twitter feeds for anyone coming to Gatwick via rail”. This approach exploits the content generated both by users and other institutions to provide customer-tailored information. They also re-tweet stories of journeys ended successfully to reassure and instil confidence in travellers.

These are my top tips on how to keep travellers updated and engaged:

• Provide up-to-date content on both the status of the situation and likely forecasts
• Provide information on alternatives (when possible)
• Use social media to inform and answer customer enquiries with tailored content and in a timely fashion
• Exploit user-generated content to provide richer information on the context
• Reassure customers by communicating successful stories

23/12/10 Tom Wood said:

Spot on Mara. The difference in approach here doesn't appear to be about weather conditions, but about who runs the airport. All of this calls into question BAA's suitability to run a major airport. Their primary business focus is retail, not flight operations...

24/12/10 Elsa Plumley said:

Having been stuck on the other side of this problem in the States for the past few days, I can tell you that both Heathrow and Gatwick did a lot better than American Airlines. Their (brand new) website didn't even acknowledge the cancelled and rescheduled flights issue on the homepage or anywhere on the site. The only way to get information was to wait on hold on the phone for hours... a truly awful customer experience!!