Online bookings highest with travellers from Mumbai airport: Survey

When it comes to online booking of air tickets or web check-ins, travellers from Mumbai seem to use them the most compared to the six leading international airports globally.

According to a survey carried out by air transport communication and IT solutions provider Sita across six international airports, more than 77% of travellers from Mumbai preferred to book their tickets online, the highest in the world and over 25% for web check-ins.

The survey was conducted on passengers flying on over 100 airlines and representing over 80 nationalities at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (Mumbai), Sao Paulo Guarulhos Airport (Brazil), Hartsfield-Jackson Airport (Atlanta), Charles de Gaulle (Paris), Domodedovo (Moscow) and OR Tambo Airport, (Johannesburg).

The actual usage rate (of online booking) was 65.9% among those interviewed, which is above the global average of 63.7% and an increase from 61.7% recorded at Mumbai during last year’s survey, the findings revealed.

In terms of usage of web check-ins, Mumbai stood second at 25.6 per cent after world's busiest airport (Atlanta), where web check-in usage was found to be as high as 32.2 per cent.

Overall, preference towards self-service check-in continues to grow at Mumbai, up from 60% last year to 68.9% this year, as against a global average of 62.9% across the six airports surveyed.

The survey also found that passengers are spending more through airline websites on ancillary services such as hotels and car hire, and their numbers are expected to double.

In Mumbai, over 40% of passengers use airline websites frequently or intermittently to book hotel rooms or car rentals which is well above the 20% average, the survey said.

The Passenger Self-service Survey is an in-depth look at the attitudes and habits of a representative sample of the 232 million passengers who use these six international airports.