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Insights & Innovation

<p>Leveraging over 80 years of aviation expertise, explore the latest insights from the travel industry covering everything from opinion pieces and thought leadership to our latest product releases, technology updates, and more.</p>


<p>Ahead of CAVU’s AI-focused webinar next month, we examine five stand-out examples of how AI has been used to transform a traditionally challenging or static area of the travel industry. Innovative applications range from personalising the display of flight information in the terminal, to forecasting operational responses to adverse weather conditions in the air.</p>


<h4><strong>1) Expedia: simplifying trip planning with AI-powered app integration</strong></h4>
<p>AI can help travellers to process vast amounts of data, narrowing down and refining preferences during the trip planning process. Earlier this year, Expedia launched a beta test of a ChatGPT integration into the Expedia app to allow conversational trip planning.</p>
<p>App users can have an AI-powered open-ended conversation in the app and get recommendations on where to go and stay, as well as possible things to see and do while on their trip. The app automatically saves any hotels mentioned in the discussion so the user can come back to them later.</p>
<p>The conversational planning prompts are integrated with the app’s other AI-powered functionality, including price tracking and hotel comparison, to create a fully AI-driven approach to trip research. The customer is guided into their choices rather than being overwhelmed with the opinions on offer.</p>
<h4><strong>2) Delta Airlines: personalising in-terminal flight information boards</strong></h4>
<p>In a futuristic take on personalisation, Delta Airlines is currently trialling a new Parallel Reality™ experience for passengers travelling through Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The installation uses AI and facial recognition technology to enable up to 100 travellers to view their own tailored flight information on the same screen at the same time.</p>
<p>Instead of having to search for their details on a busy departures board, customers are shown their own flight information and departure gate when they stand within the Parallel Reality™ screen’s viewing area. All the customer needs to do is scan their boarding pass and their own viewing zone is created through non-biometric object detection.</p>
<p>According to Delta, the system works by using different coloured lights to create separate, private viewing zones where each customer can see only their information. These zones move with the customer while they’re near the screen. Although in the test phase, this technology could have huge implications for delivering personalised information.</p>


<h4><strong>3) Singapore Changi Airport: offering a personalised, immersive retail experience</strong></h4>
<p>Earlier this year, Singapore Changi Airport saw the installation of a new immersive retail experience created by a partnership between Pernod Ricard Global Travel Retail and Lotte Duty Free. The Martell stand uses AI to offer the customer personalised tasting recommendations based on their preferences, before passing these suggestions to a robot bar tender that will prepare and serve the customer’s chosen drink.</p>
<p>While this installation is at the more playful end of AI’s possible applications, it shows the levels of personalisation possible in the airport retail space, and the kind of experiences that customers will come to expect in-terminal.</p>
<h4><strong>4) Delta Airlines: modelling operational responses through simulation</strong></h4>
<p>In an example of how AI can help to create insight from existing data, Delta Airlines has created a machine-learning platform to help it better predict and prepare for operational challenges. The airline has a wealth of historical data, and using a digital simulation environment, has been using this data to model the impact of &#8211; and best response to &#8211; hypothetical, disruptive events like bad weather.</p>
<p>This means that, when a challenging situation occurs, Delta’s operational decision makers have a range of possible responses to choose from to ensure that passengers can still travel safely and reliably. The process will be ongoing: the more data Delta has, the better prepared it will be for operational challenges.</p>


<h4><strong>5) Brisbane Airport: using AI to reduce emissions and costs</strong></h4>
<p>Sustainability remains a key concern in the travel industry, with airports keen to show they’re doing all they can to reduce their environmental impact. Brisbane Airport recently deployed BrainBox AI’s autonomous decarbonisation solution at its airport service centre to dynamically control the air conditioning by gathering and monitoring temperature data.</p>
<p>According to the airport, this reduced energy consumption by 20%, cutting carbon emissions by 22 tonnes over 3 months, with obvious cost benefits too. Following the scheme’s success, Brisbane Airport is now deploying Brainbox AI across the airport as part of its target of net zero emissions by 2025.</p>
<h4><strong>AI must be used to complement not replace existing human thought</strong></h4>
<p>While robot bar tenders and personalised display screens might sound like they belong in a sci-fi film, AI has brought them into the here and now. And while some of these stand-out implementations are at the flashier, more customer-centric side of the travel experience, it’s clear that there are many behind-the-scenes uses for AI that can improve operational efficiency by enabling better forecasting.</p>
<p>However, the way in which AI is understood, managed, and deployed will be central to its success. In our upcoming webinar, speakers from MAG and CAVU will explore how the travel industry can effectively harness AI’s power by using it to enhance existing capabilities, rather than to replace human thought.</p>
<p>Webinar guest John Hudson, MAG CTO, says:</p>
<p>&#8220;While AI holds the potential to revolutionise the aviation industry, it&#8217;s not a silver bullet that can solve all of our problems instantaneously.</p>
<p>We need to ensure we harness its power correctly and not push too hard and fast, otherwise AI will end up in the same post-hype graveyard as NFTs and 3D TVs.&#8221;</p>
<p>Our webinar will examine AI’s place in the travel industry, outlining how you can unlock the benefits for your business. To get answers to the most pressing questions around AI in travel, and to hear our speakers’ thoughts on its future applications, register to attend.</p>


AI has revolutionized a traditionally rigid and demanding segment of the travel sector. From customizing flight information displays at terminals to forecasting operational strategies for dealing with adverse weather conditions mid-air, its innovative applications have brought about transformative changes.

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Five examples of innovative AI adoptions in the travel industry

<h5 id="ember41" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph"><strong>Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping industries across the globe, and travel is no exception. AI tools and capabilities that were once seen as futuristic are now increasingly mainstream, providing real opportunities for companies to optimise operations and transform the customer experience.</strong></h5>
<p id="ember42" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">This growing interest around AI, combined with our longstanding mission to transform airport travel, made it a prime topic for our first webinar.</p>
<p id="ember43" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">We brought together a panel uniquely qualified to discuss AI&#8217;s emergence and impact on the travel sector. Featuring Manchester Airports Group CTO John Hudson and CAVU Head of Data Sam Cooledge, we tapped into extensive experience leveraging AI to enhance business and rethink customer journeys. Our host Leigh Rathbone, CAVU Head of Quality Engineering, guided the discussion to uncover AI&#8217;s origins, its operational capabilities, and the transformative role it can play for travel firms looking to innovate and offer personalised customer experiences.</p>
<p>In our latest Expert Opinion, we summarise the highlights from a fascinating discussion that is as much insightful as it is cautionary. You can also watch the full <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyUgmBgT6DU">video here</a>.</p>


<h4><strong>AI is the tool, not the solution</strong></h4>
<p>Setting the scene early, Leigh encapsulates the arrival of AI perfectly:</p>
<p><em>&#8220;AI is reshaping the way we experience the world right now. It is no longer a thing of the distant future: it’s happening right here; it’s happening right now. It is profoundly having an influence on how we in the travel industry think, how we act, and how we’re putting our customers front and centre in what we do&#8221;.</em></p>
<p>This set the scene for John and Sam to demonstrate that AI is influencing the travel industry in much smaller, more incremental ways than we might imagine. AI will not change what we do, but how we do it, speeding up and automating processes &#8211; especially those involving large volumes of data &#8211; to enhance productivity.</p>
<p>However, the travel industry needs to understand the limitations of AI and see it as a tool that can enhance existing human skills rather than replace them, building efficiencies that would not otherwise be possible.</p>
<h4><strong>How can businesses in general use AI to enhance their operations?</strong></h4>
<p>Before focusing on the travel space, John cites two ways in which AI has been implemented in real world business settings.</p>
<p>AI can level the playing field and improve output&#8230;</p>
<p>A joint study by the Harvard Business School and Boston Consulting Group perfectly demonstrates the potential of AI. In the experiment, 758 consultants were given 18 tasks to complete, with 50% chosen at random to have access to ChatGPT 4 and 50% asked to work without it.</p>
<p>Those working with AI completed 12% more tasks, 25.1% more quickly and with a 40% improvement in quality. Even more interesting, however, is that the lower-skilled cohort of those using ChatGPT saw a greater improvement than the more skilled cohort.</p>
<p>John said: &#8220;<em>AI can be a balancing force; it can balance the playing field when it comes to quality and output of our team. Now for me, that means that if I can give out access to AI for my teams, they can start doing things that are technically beyond what they would normally be able to do.&#8221;</em></p>


<h4><strong>&#8230;but only if used to enhance, not replace, human thought</strong></h4>
<p>However, John also references a different study from Harvard Business School &#8211; <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/604b23e38c22a96e9c78879e/t/62d5d9448d061f7327e8a7e7/1658181956291/Falling+Asleep+at+the+Wheel+-+Fabrizio+DellAcqua.pdf">Falling Asleep at the Wheel: Human/AI Collaboration in a Field Experiment on HR Recruiters</a> &#8211; which revealed that recruiters using AI to make their decisions for them were less skilled in their judgements and missed out on some great candidates. This is further evidence of the fact that, when AI is relied upon too much, it inspires idleness. We must ensure that AI serves as a guide rather than trusting it implicitly.</p>
<h4><strong>How can AI be used in the travel space?</strong></h4>
<p>Moving on from the benefits &#8211; and pitfalls – brought by AI, we turn our attention to how MAG and CAVU are using AI.</p>
<h4><strong>How is CAVU already using AI to optimise its pre-book products and services?</strong></h4>
<p>At CAVU, AI is proving invaluable in conducting research and getting insights. Sam explains how we’re using AI to categorise unstructured data from open text feedback models into focused metrics, acting as a segmentation tool to create sense from the noise. With these insights, CAVU is using AI to develop new products and services that match our customers’ needs.</p>
<p>The advantage of this lies in creating a more personalised experience for customers, offering a more seamless and tailored experience. As Sam explains, if we can understand trip types, we can put personalisation at the heart of customer communication. AI then allows CAVU to move at scale, forecasting demand and implementing price elasticity using booking pattern insights.</p>
<p>Sam also describes how AI enables CAVU to create real time adjustments to pricing, avoiding the extensive manual analysis that would otherwise be needed to personalise pricing and adjust it depending on context (for example a major sporting event).</p>


<p>While MAG hasn’t changed what it was doing, this improved efficiency has seen it improve customer satisfaction through more accurate and actionable predictions.</p>
<p>John stresses that this is where AI is a real game changer. It’s not about blanket implementations, but about identifying a problem and then using AI to help solve it in a way that offers real business value. AI was the tool that enhanced, not replaced, human thought and understanding of passenger behaviour, creating insights from vast volumes of data.</p>
<h4><strong>Why are we not yet serving a truly personalised experience in travel?</strong></h4>
<p>When it comes to travel booking, Leigh highlights that there are those who are willing to share data for a more personalised holiday booking experience with tailored in-airport and in-destination options.</p>
<p>However, while this is an area where we might have expected AI to thrive, its limitations lie in incredibly siloed data infrastructures. Once operators are able to share data commercially with other partners and store it more centrally, and once governmental and regulatory questions around data sharing are answered, a more personalised experience will be within reach.</p>
<p>AI will then be the differentiator, automatically processing these vast volumes of data into useable models, rather than a person having to work through them manually. AI can do everything a human can, but quicker and better.</p>
<h4><strong>How can travel businesses start to introduce AI?</strong></h4>
<p>Our speakers stress that AI is here to stay and is something that must be embraced. Part of the discussion centred around the fact that, while 18 months ago AI felt futuristic, it is now mainstream: since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has been discussed widely across television and radio in exposure not normally achieved by tech launches.</p>
<p>John predicts that, due to its simple and user-friendly interface, ChatGPT will become as ubiquitous as Windows and Microsoft. Users don’t have to be able to code; getting results is as simple as running a Google search. It’s a true disruptor that has become mainstream.</p>


<h4><strong>How can those without a tech background start to use AI?</strong></h4>
<p>For those travel businesses not yet using AI, our speakers advise that just signing up to free open access tools and starting to use them is the first step. Rather than a complete overhaul, it’s about adopting enhancements and efficiencies and simply testing what its potential is.</p>
<p>Start small and simple &#8211; for example using AI for translation, summarising email threads, or organising meetings across multiple diaries. You could even ask it to summarise an article like this into key points! You’ll then see the day-to-day efficiencies that AI can facilitate start to build into time regained for more strategic or value-add activity.</p>
<h4>AI is here to enhance rather than replace</h4>
<p>John concludes that AI can level the playing field, helping humans to complete more tasks, more quickly and to a higher standard, if we use it to enhance human thought rather than replace it. We must still interrogate AI’s conclusions and not simply accept them.</p>
<p>Both John and Sam agree that recent headlines that predict the demise of our jobs are missing the point entirely. By using it for more administrative or time-consuming tasks, it creates more efficiency and frees up time to spend on activities that add value.</p>
<p>Sam concludes that AI will allow travel businesses to do all the right things, but faster, more cheaply and at scale. It won’t reinvent what passengers want but will reinvent the way that the travel industry works to deliver it. It won’t change what we do, but how we do it. In short, AI will be the new competitive edge. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyUgmBgT6DU">Watch the webinar in full now</a>.</p>


Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping industries across the globe, and travel is no exception. AI tools and capabilities that were once seen as futuristic are now increasingly mainstream, providing real opportunities for companies to optimise operations and transform the customer experience.

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AI is the new competitive edge in the travel industry

<h4>Our UX Designer Justyna Harrison talks about the central role that customer research plays in all of CAVU’s design decisions.</h4>
<p>At CAVU we claim to understand our customers like no other. But how do we do it?</p>
<p>During an online booking journey, a customer can be faced with hundreds of details to process and interact with, and each one can impact their experience, from the placement and colour of a CTA to the layout of key product details. The goal is to make the booking journey as user-friendly and frictionless as possible, improving the customer experience while increasing the likelihood that they’ll make a purchase. The most effective way to do this successfully is extensive user research.</p>


<h4>What is UX research?</h4>
<p>Before delving into the specifics of how we integrate user research into our daily operations, let&#8217;s start with a brief explanation of what user research is.</p>
<p>User Experience (UX) research is a process of studying and understanding how people interact with products, services, or systems. It involves gathering insights about users&#8217; behaviours, needs, preferences, and challenges through various research methods such as surveys, interviews, observations, and data analysis. The goal of UX research is to create better and more user-friendly experiences by designing products and services that meet user expectations and address their pain points. It helps businesses and us as designers to make informed decisions, improve usability, and enhance customer satisfaction.</p>
<h4>Our UX methodology: how exactly do we do it at CAVU?</h4>
<p>As a UX &amp; Analytics team we run extensive user research. Depending on the requirements, we use mixed methods research &#8211; a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis &#8211; to learn as much about our customers as possible.</p>
<p>We analyse in-depth GA4 data, run online surveys, conduct Ethnography research, carry out user testing, and &#8211; most importantly – we talk to our customers via user interviews.</p>
<p>Why do we do it? Because whatever we create, we create for our customers. From the very start of an idea to creating and testing our products, we rely on customer feedback to guide all of our design decisions.</p>
<p>We have proven processes that help us gain insights into our customers&#8217; needs and pain points. We invite our customers to participate in relaxed and informal feedback sessions where we learn about them, their experiences, needs, likes and, most importantly, their frustrations, so we can act upon and improve these issues.</p>


<h4><strong>How does user research influence our design decisions?</strong></h4>
<p>Thanks to research, we have gathered insights from thousands of our customers, leading to invaluable growth and smarter strategies.</p>
<p>From creating new products to improving existing ones, our creations are guided by our customers&#8217; needs, not guesswork. When we require more understanding, we turn to our customers and, essentially, we act upon the knowledge we gain.</p>
<h4><strong>Improving website landing pages</strong></h4>
<p>In one recent project, we were tasked with improving key landing pages on our US distribution brand websites. Based on initial research, we discovered that some of the pages were not engaging for our customers and were not SEO-friendly.</p>
<p>Our main objective was to uncover what information our customers were looking for so that we could improve their engagement with these landing pages.</p>
<p>From Hotjar recordings, heatmaps, and clickmaps, we learned that our customers were not engaging with certain pages, with only 40% of observed users scrolling below the fold. Based on these findings, we set up 60-minute interviews with our US customers to learn more about their needs and what was causing their lack of engagement. We created transcripts of all recordings, tagged insights, and ran analysis sessions to find the key pain points, goals, needs, and our customers’ motivation.</p>
<p>Based on these insights, we discovered what type of content would bring value to our customers and how we could improve the layout of the landing pages to help our customers find the information they were looking for.</p>
<p>Because we found that our customers come back to the same trusted products, we added a product carousel in a prominent position to help users easily find their most valued products. We also added themed, tabbed content so that our customers can easily find and filter the information they need most: travel, hotel, and parking information.</p>
<p>In order to monitor performance, we first published these design updates on six carefully selected landing pages. We saw the pages’ visibility score improve in response to the latest Google algorithm update, showing the effectiveness of the redesign and optimised content on the pages compared to those yet to be updated.</p>


<h4><strong>Improving product cards using a mix of research methods</strong></h4>
<p>Running a mix of research has not only helped us to improve existing websites, but also new products and features we are developing, including new product cards.</p>
<p>During user interviews run on US sites, we found that over 85% of customers prioritise their favourite parking providers when making a booking decision.</p>
<p>As a result, we implemented a product card design that incorporates logos next to the parking provider name to help customers make quicker decisions and to provide assurance when choosing a parking lot. Seeing familiar logos helps to create a sense of trust and confidence during the booking process.</p>
<p>We also found that over 70% of our customers check reviews before booking a product, highlighting the importance of making product reviews prominent onsite. Reviews provide assurance of product quality and offer additional information not present in the product description.</p>
<p>From our research we also learned that over 80% of our customers rely on the map when searching for the right product. The map view informs customers about the precise parking location, while making the feature interactive means customers can zoom in and explore the surrounding area of the parking lot. Having discovered how important this is for our customers, we were able to make it a prominent feature of the product card design.</p>


<h4><strong>UX must come first in any design decision</strong></h4>
<p>Many companies make assumptions about who their customers are and what they want, but without conducting any initial UX research, it is impossible to know what customers really value and accommodate the user experience to their needs. At CAVU, UX is the first step in any design decision, however small. This ensures that from the very start, we are putting the customer at the heart of everything we do.</p>


Our UX Designer Justyna Harrison talks about the central role that customer research plays in all of CAVU’s design decisions

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Insights and innovation

How can data and tech reshape passenger experiences?

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How are premium services improving the passenger experience?

Five examples of innovative AI adoptions in the travel industry

AI is the new competitive edge in the travel industry

UX & the Design Process: putting the customer first

UX & the Design Process:  putting the customer first