Air travellers want more self-service: Study

International airline passengers want self-service extended from online booking and kiosk check-in to security and passport control and boarding their flights, an industry report said.

The report, based on a survey taken at seven major airports on five continents, said most travellers also want more automation for handing baggage and paying excess fees, reporting missing luggage, and switching flights.

The survey found that online booking and check-in have overtaken the traditional methods of visiting an airline office or travel agent and collecting boarding passes from registration desks at the airport.

"People just want more self-service at every step of their journey," said Quentin Browell, spokesperson for the Geneva-based SITA (Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques).

The report said an average of 71% of passengers surveyed at the seven hubs had booked online or at automated airport kiosks for their flights, and many more would be ready to do so if they understood the process better.

But checking-in on mobile phones was much less common, with only 3% of those questioned on the day of the survey having used the method.

SITA, which provides telecommunication services to the air transport industry, recorded a sharp growth in passengers using airline websites to book hotels — up from 21% of those surveyed in 2009 to 38% this year — and to rent cars — up from 19% to 35%.

There were similar increases in the use of carriers' websites for other services like buying travel insurance, bus and train tickets, and for ordering duty-free items in advance, the SITA spokesperson said.

The survey was carried out on a single day at Atlanta, Beijing, Frankfurt, Johannesburg-Tambo, Mumbai, Moscow-Domodedovo and Sao Paulo airports.

The report, however, did not identify exactly how passengers saw automation working in security and passport control, or in baggage check-in, but methods of easing these processes are under study at SITA.

The survey also found that travellers in North America and Asia were increasingly willing to pay a small extra fee to offset the carbon footprint of their flight.