How AI and smart funnels are optimising the passenger experience

Posted: 16 January 2025 | Aviation Solutions | No comments yet

When Borms started, the product was still in its early stages, and much has changed since then. His decision to join Aviation Solutions, a subsidiary of Schiphol Group with the mission to make proven products available to other airports, came from various factors: “I had a lot of experience in tech startups and scale-ups. But the chance to build something at Aviation Solutions from the ground up with the backing of a large corporation like Schiphol and to challenge the status quo appealed to me a lot”.

Borms has definitely been able to put his experience to use: The Travor platform grew from 25,000 users per month to over one million. Its functionalities have expanded significantly, and today the platform is also used by multiple international airports alongside Schiphol.

Fastlane to growth

Initially, Travor only offered basic functions like flight information, a simple map, frequently asked questions, and a video call option, Borms explains. But many of these functions were bootstrapped, which made the platform hard to manage and posed significant challenges for development and scaling.

“For each function, like the map or video calling, we had to find separate vendors and perform costly custom integrations, which led to high costs and long development times”. By developing more functions in-house and standardising them, Travor also became more appealing to other airports.

The product was made more robust and modular and all components are now seamlessly integrated. This allows for faster delivery while maintaining high quality. Additionally, its straightforward implementation supports multiple use cases within a single platform which enables airports to streamline operations and significantly reduce costs.

This approach has paid off: the introduction of Travor at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol resulted in a higher-rated level of support while reducing staffing requirements by 30%. In addition to Schiphol, Hamad International Airport, and Frankfurt Airport are also using the platform, and Athens Airport is set to launch in the first half of 2025.

At Hamad International Airport, the Self-Service Units currently reach about 10% of all departing passengers. Over 95% of them report they had a positive user experience.

Impact through accessibility

Alongside expanding and integrating its functions, the platform also became more accessible. “It’s great to improve a product, but a product only has an impact when it’s used by many people.”

Where Travor started as a kiosk solution, it has now evolved into an omnichannel platform accessible via kiosks, mobile devices, and desktops. At Schiphol, it’s also the starting point after connecting to the free WiFi. And by offering QR codes in the terminal, passengers can easily find their way to the information they need. This increased the platform’s reach significantly.

However, the rapid growth also brings challenges. “It’s great that the platform continues to grow, but we don’t want to tell an airport that they suddenly have to hire 40 new agents to keep up with the demand for video-calls”. Efficiently deploying existing agents is therefore crucial. That’s where the ‘funnel approach’ comes in.

The funnel approach

According to Borms, the funnel approach is based on four pillars: triage, empowerment, automation and optimisation.

Triage focuses on “selection at the gate”: travellers receive exactly the information they need. It is targeted and personalised where the platform can make the most impact, as each situation requires a specific approach.

“A traveller looking for Starbucks for a coffee has a different support need than parents who’ve just been informed their lost child has been found at a Starbucks.”

While the goal in both cases is the same – finding Starbucks – the context calls for an adapted approach. “In the first case, a personalised offer might be appropriate, while in the second, speed and support take priority. The platform must be able to make that distinction.”

Furthermore, Borms says it’s most valuable to allocate resources to travellers whose customer satisfaction score can be raised the most significantly. Currently, the video call support is the highest-rated support channel, with an impressive 4.6 out of 5 score. “Raising a traveller’s score to a 5 would be nice, but with an airport’s limited resources, the priority lies in finding the biggest improvements.”

When escalation to a video call is needed, the airport’s staff – their ‘superheroes’ – must be equipped with ‘superpowers’ to handle it efficiently, he says.  At this point, the second pillar ‘empower’ becomes relevant.

Humans to be replaced by AI?

In almost every industry, companies are looking at how AI can improve their organisation. Aviation Solutions is also actively leveraging AI. But Borms says they take a slightly different approach than many other organisations. “I often refer to Karim Lakhani’s quote: ‘We won’t be replaced by AI, but by people who use AI.’”

He emphasises that human intervention remains indispensable in some situations. “Think of the traveller who urgently needed to go to Latin America but forgot to get a visa while the gate was about to close. Such a situation can only be resolved through human knowledge, network, and empathy. In stressful situations, I think people would rather be helped by a person than a chatbot or AI avatar.”

At Aviation Solutions, the power of AI is currently focused on enhancing operator capabilities with ‘superpowers.’ For example, the aim is to enable automatic translation during video calls, which makes it possible to assist a Japanese traveller without a language barrier. The system is also being developed to recognise when a traveller is searching for a particular store and preload a map that the operator can simply drag into the chat.