Designing Premium Travel Services

Our client is one of Europes busiest airport operators. They welcome thousands of profitable and loyal premium travellers into their airports on behalf of their airline customers everyday. With premium offers commonplace in the air, airlines and airports are looking to differentiate the passenger experience on the ground.

One of the main benefits for premium passengers at our clientҒs airports is a service to get through passenger search quickly. However, with a multi-million pound upgrade to the standard passenger experience, and rival operators introducing innovative new schemes across Europe, our clients realised that speed alone will soon no longer be enough to differentiate the service (and justify the additional cost to their airline customers.)

With all this in mind the operator approached Engine to completely re-model the experience of premium passenger search. We were given a wide remit although the statutory search technology and processes were of course off limits.

We worked with a wide range of experts to understand how premium services are delivered.

We began the project by diving in to a range of premium experiences from other sectors to inspire and guide the design work. We experienced premium retail, health care and hospitality services, interviewing premium providers from across the world.

We developed a range of propositions which were refined down to a single premium service concept articulated across the domains of people, place and process.

Following sign-off from senior stakeholders and airline customers, we began to prototype the concept in a temporary building at the airport, using low cost materials and working with professional security staff and actors to explore new roles and behaviours. This helped us better understand the actual experience of using the service, testing, iterating and refining to gave us a platform to introduce the airline customers to many of the new ideas.

Design solutions had to address the multiple touchpoints of people, place, product and process.

Once satisfied with the final concept, we produced a detailed service specification document outlining levels of implementation, new staff roles, new communications and product touchpoints, incorporating a new proposition and brand strategy that focuses on the quality of the experience, as well as the speed advantage of travelling premium through the airport. The design is currently being rolled out.