The Practice of Digitalization in Improving Customer Experience of Indonesian Commercial Aviation Industry

• Main Author: Irfan Nurhadi, Muhammad
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/41683
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Aviation sector is facing a competition in terms of developing new technology into their business, with an aim to increase capacity, remove bottlenecks and increase customer experience. Moreover, PWC report in 2016 concluded that “Air travel remains for many a disappointing, grumbleworthy experience”. This research is aimed to give comprehensive insight regarding passengers’ experience while using air transportation in Indonesia and the minimum effort that the industry has put to maximize customer experience. The insight is achieved by connecting past studies, findings and list of touchpoints play an important role toward passenger experience. A primary data is gathered via online questionnaires and analyzed using nonparametric approach. This research relies on frameworks and findings from previous studies segmented into two topics to be gathered in order to support the research itself. The two topics are creation of passengers’ experience during air travel and digitalization in aviation industry. Thus, we must understand what experience is, and what makes it different to service. Service involves engagement which includes customer satisfaction as they go through a series of touchpoints during air travel. The other topic is digital transformation, which is the main variable in the research. According to various sources, the touch points that have been digitalized and implemented effectively in modern aviation industry, but not in Indonesia, are choosing your own seat feature, e-boarding pass, self-service luggage, automated immigration, integrated transfer between airport and city, synchronized and rapid Wi-Fi, as well as a more modern in-flight entertainment. There are three particular research questions: What are the least satisfying factors that passengers face during air travel in Indonesia acknowledging the flight frequency? Is there a correlation between each digitalized facility toward the overall passenger experience? Do air travel passengers agree on the digital implementation? This research uses a casual research design, it is adopted due to the researcher’s interest on the cause and effect relationship between the variables in the investigation. The findings of the first research question and hypothesis is that there is no statistically significant differences between overall customer satisfaction and the different group of frequent flyers. In addition to that, the findings of the second research question and hypothesis is shows that an increase experience of each digitalized facility was strongly associated in an increase of the overall experience. Lastly, more than 90% respondents stated that digitalized facilities should be implemented effectively in Indonesia which puts them in exploration stage. The response can be generalised regardless of the frequency of flight taken, showing that there are several touchpoints and facilities that passengers are dissatisfied with. The result also shows an increasing experience of each digitalized facilities was strongly associated in an increase of overall experience. However, the research sample is limited to author’s personal contact and within the Indonesian commercial aviation industry, the output might be different if the research has participants with more frequency of flights taken in the past year. Further academic implication is needed with participants from different scope and setting. For managerial implications, managers must observe the significant relationship between facilities toward customer experience as a whole, in order to avoid any touchpoints that might decrease an air travel experience.