More Travel Disruption Feared As Passengers Take To The Skies This Holiday Season

Delayed flights or missed connections was the most common holiday hurdle, affecting over a third of all passengers (35%), followed closely by waiting in longer than normal queues (31%) and cancelled flights (15%). Lost luggage, which dominated the news headlines in the Summer, is confirmed by the research as a major annoyance, blighting nearly 1 in 7 passengers' holidays over the last 18 months.

Despite a clear desire to travel, passengers won't accept more disruption without protest. If passengers find out their journey is going to be disrupted, 53% will complain to the airline and 38% will use social media to broadcast their annoyance. And if an airline doesn't have a reputation for punctuality they're likely to lose out with 93% of travellers saying this is an important factor when deciding which airline to buy from.

However, there is still an opportunity for airlines to win back the loyalty of their passengers. When terminal turmoil occurs, passengers can be placated by automatic refunds when eligible; proactive customer support to suggest alternative routes; and automatic alerts on their phone when something goes wrong. As one passenger who took the survey commented: "Just actually organise yourselves properly, there's no excuse for all the disruption".

Philip Hinton, SVP, IBS Software, comments: "The pent-up desire to travel was always going to put airlines and airports under extreme pressure - and so it proved, with widespread disruption plaguing many long-anticipated journeys. Airlines know this is a major issue and we are seeing them prioritising on-time performance and customer satisfaction because the widespread issues have directly impacted business performance."

About the research

*The survey was conducted online by Censuswide between Monday 28th November and Wednesday 30th November. 1000 consumers who have travelled by air for leisure in the last 18 months in both the US and UK responded.

About IBS Software

IBS Software is a leading SaaS solutions provider to the travel industry globally, managing mission-critical operations for customers in the aviation, tour & cruise and hospitality industries. IBS Software's solutions for the aviation industry cover fleet & crew operations, aircraft maintenance, passenger services, loyalty programs, staff travel and air-cargo management. IBS Software also runs a real time B2B and B2C distribution platform providing hotel room inventory, rates and availability to a global network of hospitality companies and channels. For the tour and cruise industry, IBS provides a comprehensive, customer-centric, digital platform that covers onshore, online and on-board solutions. IBS Software is a Blackstone portfolio company and operates from 15 offices across the world. Further information can be found at https://www.ibsplc.com/

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