Due to the growing amount of air traveller in the coming decades, there is an increasing interest to improve the experience of the passengers. Especially travelling with hold-luggage is a big pain point and stress factor for passengers’. A new way of looking at this problem is providing a baggage pick-up and delivery service by independent baggage courier companies or by a collaboration of a airline and local courier company. Generaly, this trend is unknown to passengers.
The project client for this project is SITA. SITA is a well known IT and hardware solution developer, who serves aviation customers worldwide. Instead of letting airport and airlines develop their own baggage service, SITA could be a party who offers an universal service. However, this trend is unknown territory for SITA, and they have limited understanding of the experiences of passengers. For SITA it is interesting to be inspired of how a baggage pick-up service would look like and what their role could be.
The pick-up moment is a critical moment in the service journey. In a short time-span, the service needs to leave a good impression, exchange the baggage and check it in. Then, the courier needs to be on its way again, and the passengers should be left behind with a good feeling. Especially this exchange feels unequal for the passengers. This resulted in the following research question: How to facilitate a trustworthy moment for families to ‘hand-over’ their hold-luggage to a first-mile baggage service (home pick-up to arrival airport delivery), so they can travel carefree to their destination.
In the designed service concept the passenger and courier identify each other with the use of a chip that is connected to a platform; where the data is stored and distributed to the partners of the service. By checking the baggage allowance and securing an Electronic Bag Tag to the luggage a check-in experience is enhanced. And prepares the passenger for a paperless and self-service future travel. Moreover, the passengers get access to the Bag Journey Planning to maintain tactile visibility over their belongings. During the moment the helping-hand attitude of the courier is crucial for the customer experience.
The interaction is supported by, a SITA, API cloud platform that makes the communication; sharing and usage of the data-sets, possible at this moment. Additionally, SITA offers a standard interface, through which partners can access the platform, that is runs on the own application of the courier partner. The biggest challenge for SITA is to manage all the API calls the couriers’ devices make, especially when the amount API calls per minute grows, the use of a baggage home pick-up service grows. Nevertheless, the proposed role lays within the core activities of SITA.
The validation with the target group revealed a rising positive development from the moment the courier arrives at the door and leaves with the bags. The participants were enthusiastic and had faith in the service quality. They called it: customer-friendly, easy, personal, and therefore they would go on holiday with a more secured feeling.
The project showed an exciting potential for SITA to be a disrupter in the aviation world and offer a universal baggage service. However, there are a few to-do’s for continuing the project: Develop a tactical roadmap, construct a business case for the EBT, research the needs of the courier, and search a case owner within SITA.