These and many other surprising facts are included in Finavia’s video. If you are a numbers freak, statistics enthusiast or otherwise interested in the airport, you will find fun figures and pieces of information in our video animation.
However, Finavia is serious about drawing up statistics and doing research. They are an integral element of the development of airports’ customer experience, services and marketing. The goal is to get to know passengers better.
“When we know who our passengers are, why they travel, and what they do at the airport, we can provide them with better services and take our operations in the right direction”, says Petra Merikanto, customer insight manager at Finavia.
Merikanto says that two important target groups clearly stand out from Helsinki Airport’s approximately 16.5 million passengers; heavy users (frequent travellers), and Chinese travellers.
Heavy users account for as much as one-third of all trips. The group is small: 220,000 individuals. It seems that they travel a lot. It is no surprise that they appreciate quick and efficient services. Their frequent travels makes them a key target group for the airport.
Recently, we have paid extra attention to business traveller services by streamlining them and renovating lounge facilities, for example. This has also had an impact on passenger satisfaction; feedback from business travellers has been positive.
The Chinese are another important passenger group. Their number is growing rapidly.
Due to that and other reasons, Helsinki Airport has hired employees who know the Chinese language, and has provided customer service staff with Chinese culture training. In addition, the airport will soon introduce two service outlets for the Chinese.
In general, growth is currently based on foreign passengers as already more than half (51%) of passengers at Helsinki Airport are foreigners.
Even though the Chinese and frequent travellers stand out as clear development themes, the services and passenger experience of all passenger groups and types are also improved at the same time.
Several surveys for measuring services and satisfaction
“Helsinki Airport conducted eight surveys last year. We processed 13,000 survey forms and did 60 in-depth interviews. We also monitor service quality through mystery shopping”, says Merikanto.
From the mid-1990s, Finavia has participated in surveys that measure the service quality of international airports. Finavia has always performed well. Last year, for example, Helsinki Airport was given a very good total grade (4.02 on a scale from 1 to 5) in the ASQ survey.
Skytrax is another important benchmark survey, and Helsinki Airport has performed well in that survey, too. Passengers nominated Helsinki Airport the the best airport in North Europe about a month ago.
Merikanto says that a main aspect of service development is to also focus on the future. It is important to follow the general trends and try to identify the main themes that have an impact on Finavia’s operations and development work.
Currently, the main themes are digital services, climate change, cybersecurity and the ageing Finnish population. The growth of the middle class and purchasing power in Asia is a clear trend with an impact on travelling. Individualism and the use of social media are also on the rise in China.
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