Factors influencing the airport customer experience

208 Pages·2015·3.3 MB·English

Factors influencing the airport customer experience:
A case study of Auckland International Airport’s customers

Erwin Losekoot

A thesis submitted to
Auckland University of Technology
in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

2015

Faculty of Business and Law
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the factors influencing the airport customer
experience. Much current research and management effort on airports focuses on
efficiency, effectiveness, speed of processing and rankings on international league
tables. These measures seem to reward those airports which can best move the largest
number of passengers and their luggage. The writer of this study believed that the
‘experience’ of the ‘airport customer’ (passengers and those meeting or farewelling
them) is not being given sufficient prominence at a time when it is recognised that the
‘experience economy’ can add value and create customer loyalty.
New Zealand’s largest airport was the case study location for this research, and 120
interviews were undertaken in the airport environment with people who were
experiencing the airport, either as arriving or departing passengers, or those greeting or
farewelling them. In addition, 10 interviews were undertaken with airport management
to explore their perceptions of the airport customer experience. All interviews with
airport customers were undertaken in the land-side food court area of the international
terminal. A plan of the airport is provided in Appendix 2 to assist the reader in
understanding the layout of the airport. The guided conversations were focused on
encouraging participants to share their perspective of the airport customer experience in
order to build on what is already known from the quantitative surveys of passengers
which are the more common form of research into airports. Together with the above
data, the writer also kept a detailed research diary with observations made over the
course of the data gathering phase. Hermeneutics guided the interpretive process which
resulted in a number of overarching themes or notions which form the basis of this
study’s findings. These include processes, people, physical environment and
‘placeness’. However, the research also uncovered what the writer has termed a
‘personal travel philosophy’. There was a significant number of people who, despite
delays and other obstacles to their travel plans, appeared to be remarkably content with
their lot at the airport, and this term is used to describe that group.
The research concludes with a proposed model of the airport customer experience
addressing five aspects – physical environment, processing, people, placeness and
personal travel philosophy – and provides recommendations for airport management
and opportunities for further academic research both in airports and in congruous areas
ii
such as hospitals. Airport management must spend time making people feel welcome if

these spaces are to be perceived as hospitable places. The contribution that this thesis
makes to the body of knowledge is a deeper understanding of the factors influencing the
airport customer experience in the customers’ own words. It allows the voices of airport
customers to be heard in a way that has not previously happened, in part because the
dominant paradigm is a positivist one of facts, figures, benchmarks and league tables.
By taking the time to listen carefully in an open-ended discussion, this research has
identified much of what the airport customer really feels about the space they are
obliged to spend an increasing amount of time in.

iii
Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................ ii
List of Tables .................................................................................................................. vi

List of Figures ................................................................................................................. vi

Attestation of Authorship ............................................................................................. vii

Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... viii

Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

Aim and scope of the research ...................................................................................... 1

Rationale and significance of the study ........................................................................ 2

History and context of the airport used in this study .................................................... 6

Outline of the study ..................................................................................................... 11

Chapter 2: Literature review ....................................................................................... 13

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 13

The development of airports ....................................................................................... 15

Management of airports .............................................................................................. 22

Space ........................................................................................................................... 32

The mobilities literature .............................................................................................. 41

Hospitality ................................................................................................................... 44

The customer experience............................................................................................. 50

Chapter 3: Methodology ............................................................................................... 56

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 56

The research question .................................................................................................. 57

Ontology and epistemology ........................................................................................ 58

Phenomenology and hermeneutics .............................................................................. 61

Symbolic interactionism and airport research ............................................................. 68

Thematic analysis ........................................................................................................ 70

The case study approach ............................................................................................. 74

Saturation .................................................................................................................... 77

Objectivity through triangulation ................................................................................ 80

Methods ....................................................................................................................... 83

Interviews with airport customers ........................................................................... 83

Interviews with official airport organisations ......................................................... 84

Observation ............................................................................................................. 85

Other sources of feedback ....................................................................................... 85

The sample .................................................................................................................. 86

Reflection .................................................................................................................... 89

Delimitations of the research ...................................................................................... 90

iv
Chapter 4: Findings ...................................................................................................... 92

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 92

Themes ........................................................................................................................ 94

Other data sources ....................................................................................................... 96

Physical environment .................................................................................................. 99

Processes ................................................................................................................... 104

People ........................................................................................................................ 111

Placeness ................................................................................................................... 117

Personal Travel Philosophy....................................................................................... 123

Suggestions ............................................................................................................... 127

Airport management and other operators .................................................................. 128

Chapter 5: Analysis and discussion ........................................................................... 133

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 133

Themes ...................................................................................................................... 134

Physical environment ............................................................................................ 135

Processes ............................................................................................................... 136

People .................................................................................................................... 138

Placeness ............................................................................................................... 141

Personal Travel Philosophy................................................................................... 142

Models of the airport customer experience ............................................................... 143

The thesis application model ................................................................................. 143

The early observations model ............................................................................... 145

The concentric circles of experience model .......................................................... 146

The benchmark mapping model ............................................................................ 147

The airport customer experience model ................................................................ 149

Chapter 6: Conclusions .............................................................................................. 152

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 152

Research objectives ................................................................................................... 153

Summary of the findings ........................................................................................... 154

Contribution of the study .......................................................................................... 154

Research issues.......................................................................................................... 158

Recommendations for management .......................................................................... 159

Further academic research opportunities .................................................................. 162

References .................................................................................................................... 165

Appendix 1: Outputs from this research .................................................................. 183

Appendix 2: Plan of Auckland Airport terminal buildings .................................... 184

Appendix 3: Research, photography and airports as places or non-places ........... 186

v
List of Tables
Table 1.1: The top and bottom airports in the Top 100 airports listing on Skytrax ......... 4
Table 2.1: Airport operating revenue sources ................................................................ 23

Table 2.2: Motivations for airport terminal shopping .................................................... 26

Table 3.1: Research approach......................................................................................... 65

Table 3.2: Initial coding outputs ..................................................................................... 74

Table 3.3: Sources of evidence ....................................................................................... 76

Table 4.1: Details of evidence used ................................................................................ 93

Table 4.2: Frequency of comments from airport customers........................................... 94

Table 4.3: Stages of data analysis................................................................................... 97

Table 6.1: Quotes supporting the conceptual model .................................................... 157

List of Figures
Figure 5.1: The thesis application model ..................................................................... 144
Figure 5.2: The early observations model .................................................................... 145

Figure 5.3: The concentric circles of experience model .............................................. 146

Figure 5.4: The benchmark mapping model ................................................................ 147

Figure 5.5: The airport customer experience model .................................................... 149

Figure 6.1: The model of the airport customer experience. ......................................... 156

vi
Attestation of Authorship
I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my
knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another
person (except where explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which
to a substantial extent has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma
of a university or other institution of higher learning.

Signed ______________________________

Date ____________________

vii
Acknowledgements
This thesis could not have been completed without the support of many people.
I would like to thank the management of Auckland International Airport Ltd. for
listening patiently to my initial plan and allowing me access to the terminal building.
The managers of other organisations operating at the airport whether as government
departments, consultants, contractors or concessionaires.
The many airport customers who gave me their time and thoughts on their experiences
either at the time or later by e-mail.
My supervisors Professor Dr J Nevan Wright and Associate Professor Dr Michael Lück.
AUT who awarded me a Vice-Chancellor’s Doctoral Study Award scholarship for six
months allowing me to complete the study.
Professor Liz Smythe and members of the Heideggerian discussion group who met on
wet Wednesday afternoons in Akoranga.
Dr Larry Powell who helped me to see how Heidegger, hermeneutics and Maslow are
all connected through a search for the meaning of things.
Julia Sibley and the Savoy Educational Trust who gave me my opening into the
academic environment through their sponsorship of the Sir Hugh Wontner Lectureship.
My children, who have come to understand the cost of doing a PhD.
My three External Examiners: Emeritus Prof. Richard Butler; Prof. Arch Woodside and
Reader Dr. Peter Lugosi who gave me helpful suggestions and feedback which have
improved this thesis.
Finally I would like to thank those colleagues who surrounded me at the start of this
journey at The Scottish Hotel School, University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and those
who supported me to finish it at Auckland University of Technology in Auckland.
To the memory of my grandfather Stephanus Franken who I never met and who never
got to finish his PhD.

This thesis was granted ethics approval (Ref: 12/69) by AUTEC on 15 May 2012.

viii
Chapter 1: Introduction
Aim and scope of the research
Airports are major economic drivers not just for a city or region, but often for the whole
country. They (and the city they are located in) may also act as a cultural and symbolic
gateway to a country (Lohmann & Duval, 2014). It is therefore desirable that those
using the airport have a positive experience. However, airport management face
considerable challenges as there are many different segments of airport users, from
luxury to budget, and frequent business flyers to holiday travellers. Each may have
different needs, and the airport must find a way to meet those needs. An additional
challenge in doing this is that there are many different organisations involved in the
creation of the airport customer’s experience, ranging from private to public, retail to
regulatory. In this study the needs of the customer will be investigated using a
phenomenological approach with the focus being on the customer’s lived experience
rather than the priorities of the airport management, which is the focus of much existing
airport research.
Previous research which will also be reviewed in this thesis focused on airport
efficiency rather than on the lived experience of those using the facility. As New
Zealand’s largest airport (twice the size of Wellington airport), it is used by 14 million
passengers a year, over 70% of international visitors to New Zealand, and the
international terminal is therefore a crucial gateway to the entire country. Semi-
structured interviews, participant and non-participant observation were used in this
study, as well as document analysis and netnography data gathering methods in the
exploratory phase of this research (Rageh, Melewar, & Woodside, 2013). Poulston and
Pernecky (2014, p. 16) point out that “exploratory research requires not only personal
interest and passion about the selected research topic but also demands substantial
fieldwork”.
There are many organisations and businesses operating within the footprint of the
modern airport, including transport operators, retailers, tour operators and hotel and
restaurant operators. These are outside the scope of this study which focuses specifically
on the airport customer – those people making use of the facilities in the actual airport
terminal. The ‘airport customer’ includes those who find themselves at the airport but
who may not be flying in or out on the day on which they were interviewed.
1
Rationale and significance of the study

The research question is ‘what factors influence the airport customer experience?’. This
merits investigation because airports act as an increasingly important node in modern
society whether for business, leisure or to allow globally-located families to stay
connected. They have considerable economic, political and social impacts on the
environment that they are located in (Thompson & Clements, 2003). It is expected that
international gateway airports will represent and personify entire countries and cultures
while at the same time operating efficiently enough to make a major economic
contribution to the region and to the wider country. New Zealand’s International Visitor
Arrivals Survey (Statistics New Zealand, 2013) estimates that 70% of international
visitors to New Zealand come through Auckland International Airport and therefore
form their first impressions of the country through their experiences in the terminal
building. Likewise, those leaving the country by air have their last experience of ‘kiwi
hospitality’ at the airport. Factories are built for efficiency, shopping malls for a variety
of retail experiences, and theme parks for entertainment, but an airport increasingly
needs to address all three objectives of efficiency, retail experiences and entertainment.
Fuller and Harley (2004, p. 41) describe airports post the 9/11 attacks as being “part
mall, part theme park, part check-point”. In an ever more competitive global
environment, airports must be cost-effective, with competitive landing fees, fast
turnaround times and few delays. They must also protect travellers from terrorism and
other crime, protect the host country from contraband and disease, be sensitive to the
different circumstances and motivations people have for travelling (business, leisure,
sad/joyful family occasions, education or an OE – the common name for a young New
Zealander’s Overseas Experience) and provide people with an ultimately satisfying and
rewarding experience. The airport must achieve this irrespective of how frequently or
rarely people travel, how much or little they understand how an airport works, or how
much or little they have paid for the experience.
Airports already gather a considerable amount of information on customers for the
purposes of national security, for economic reasons, for benchmarking their
performance against other airports and also in response to government targets that have
been set partially out of concern for the monopolistic environment many airports
operate in. Statistics New Zealand produces the monthly International Visitor Arrivals
to New Zealand which is compiled from the Travel and Migration Dataset (Statistics
New Zealand, 2013) made up of electronic records supplied by the New Zealand
2