Finnair, Swiss talk difficult distribution decisions, customer experience

The aviation industry has a busy year ahead of it no matter what angle you look at it from.

First up on the priority list will be a smooth summer with a dynamic of strong demand playing out against planned strikes across Europe by air traffic control employees as well as airline and airport workers.

During Phocuswright Europe 2023, Tamur Goudarzi Pour, chief commercial officer at Swiss International Air Lines, said that while the industry is “still in recovery phase and not out of the woods yet,” he expects a better experience than in 2022.

He was joined by Rogier van Enk, senior vice president of customer engagement at Finnair, who said that compared with a year ago, customers are far more likely to help themselves via the carrier’s website and app. He added that online self-service has increased to 75% of customers from 25% in the past.

Both panelists on the "Making Flying Fun Again"session also discussed developments with IATA’s new distribution capability (NDC) technology standard and whether a carrot or stick approach works better.

Goudarzi Pour said it’s more about “convenience and value add for the customer” as well as the ability for airlines to have control over their own content, while van Enk added the industry had to take some “hard actions.”

“We need the industry to move. A collaborative approach is important, but at the end of the day it’s too expensive the way it is set up now for agents, for [global distribution systems] and for us, to have duplicate systems.”

Watch the full session moderated by PhocusWire’s Linda Fox below: