For a long time, the airline industry has been at the forefront of digital breakthroughs. Think about how the in-flight entertainment has changed over the past decade and you can see straight away how things are changing. If you look beyond the fact that this year, the pandemic has changed the travel industry, you’ll still see how far each airline has come to make airplanes safer and easier to fly.

People are able to travel further and faster than ever, and it’s no wonder when so many of the airlines use specifically engineered aerospace components to keep things moving. There are modern factors disrupting the airline industry right now, including the evolving customer needs and the competition from newer airlines that are always coming up. Airlines are changing to match the latest technology, and here are some of the trends that are impacting the airline industry.

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• Artificial Intelligence – It’s Here. We’re not talking aliens here, but AI is the new user interface. We can only do so much to offer a bespoke experience to customers these days, and humans can only do so much when it comes to baggage and ticketing issues. So, we rely on the newer technology to predict customer behaviours and accurately calculate baggage fees and seating allocations. Not only this, but artificial intelligence can extend way beyond what an airline can offer on the surface. AI can be used to free up the employees for the important tasks out there.
• The Travel Ecosystem. Airlines are often responsible for much of the air pollution out there, and they have to become bigger participants in the travel ecosystem. If airlines collaborate with hotels and travel partners, they can reduce the energy and waste spent where people go between five different places to organize a trip. With the right application programming interfaces, this becomes easier than ever.
• Marketplace Workforce. We rely more and more on digital technology these days, and airlines are doing the same. Creating a customer experience that remains seamless means looking for the best people to execute it. When airlines look at making talent pools of individuals from which to hire, they can have an automatic process whereby people are chosen from the pool of talented individuals to work with them. It’s a whole new hiring process and it will make a difference to the way the airline industry hires.
• Aligning Design. One of the biggest trends that airlines have adopted in recent years has been designing for humans. To create a seamless customer experience isn’t easy, but cruise liners and other large industries that are customer focused have managed to do this. With airlines more equipped than ever to predict what the customers want and deliver it, they are going to be better in the eyes of thoses who use the service.

Airlines are more customer focused than ever before, and with the trends above impacting the airlines in a positive way, they can continue to grow from strength to strength – pandemic not included!