Flight tracker service FlightView recently pushed a survey to their mobile users, focusing on the state of both the pre- and in-flight experience.
The survey was taken by 2,160 travelers, of which 37.5% were business travelers.
These travelers are much more likely to be using smartphones for check-ins and boardings than they were in recent years, showing that smartphone adoption has changed habits significantly.
Boarding with a mobile phone has picked up significantly, up 11% over 2012 at 61% of travelers using a mobile device to board. And of travelers that were presented a choice to use a mobile boarding pass, 70% took advantage of the technology - up 12% over last year.
And yet, as another FlightView survey pointed out earlier this year, airlines are severely lacking in the functionality department. Airlines are not offering enough functionality that both delivers a good user experience and also provides ancillary up-sell opportunities throughout the traveler's lifecycle.
Respondents here were most open to purchasing ancillaries at the time-of-booking and within the actual travel window - ie. when they are sitting at the airport, already in the travel experience.
Another missed opportunity continues to be WiFi and in-flight connectivity. If customers are willing to be up-sold, the airline must have a solid selection of ancillary products available - such as WiFi.
Historically, such as in this survey last year, air travelers have not been satisfied with in-flight connectivity options. The recent results here continue this trend, as airlines are still lagging behind traveler expectations for in-the-sky WiFi.
Only 32% of travelers are satisfied with the availability of WiFi on planes – up just 1% from 2012.
Passengers are using many devices during their flights - smartphones still dominate, which may change as it becomes easier to connect to the Internet, and thus larger screen sizes become more appealing.
Regardless, the traveling public is dissatisfied with the current availability of WiFi, and as the majority have demonstrated openness to purchasing add-ons, the airlines are leaving a chunk of ancillary on the table.
A select few airlines - the usual suspects of Virgin America and JetBue - continue to see this continued connectivity as a differentiator that will become a competitive advantage after the latest technologies are installed. Both airlines will soon feature WiFi speeds many times faster than the average airline, and will have WiFi penetration that far exceeds anyone else - especially the traditional legacy carrier laggards. Passengers will even be able to stream video with JetBlue's new high-capacity technology.
These sorts of investments in connectivity are creating a clear divide in priorities, and it appears that crunch time is rapidly approaching. Will consumers vote with their travel dollars and continue to support lowest-available-pricing or will a subset of both premium and connectivity-seekers change loyalties to airlines with the fastest download speeds?
NB: Window seat image courtesy Shutterstock.