Gearing up for Open African Skies: An Airport Service Quality Perspective

The role of air transport in today’s highly globalised world can never be overstated. While in other parts of the world aviation has long since been embraced, not only for its ability to connect people across different locations, but as an important driver of economic growth; Africa is yet to fully realise the potential of this trillion dollar, global industry. Facilitating trade and tourism as well as growing markets beyond geographical boundaries, air transportation is contributing to economies across the globe. Although making strides to fully embrace air transportation and its economic benefits, Africa continues to encounter various challenges ranging from operational inefficiencies, to corporate governance pitfalls which make it almost difficult to reap the economic benefits of air connectivity.

For decades, one of the crucial issues in Africa’s air transport industry has been the slow implementation of the open skies agreement by African countries. Open skies agreements essentially encourage markets to work freely by deregulating some areas of the air transport industry. The idea of liberalising African skies has been on the cards for over thirty years with the Yamoussoukro Declaration formalising this idea among African leaders in 1988. Today, under the auspices of the African Union’s Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), African leaders are once again making a deliberate effort to fully implement the Agreement’s provisions for liberalising air transportation. As more African countries agree to open up their skies, prospects for finally realising untapped potential seem to be slowly turning into reality. It is envisaged that removing barriers from the industry and allowing freedom in the African skies, will catalyse the continent’s economic growth.

In addition to other benefits, fully implementing the SAATM is envisaged to increase passenger traffic across the continent. For instance, competition amongst airlines will be stimulated, government interference will be greatly reduced and airlines should ultimately be able to offer more affordable fares to passengers. Consequently, passenger traffic is expected to increase. Whilst this is evidently desirable, it poses important implications to airport management particularly with regards to the quality of services.

To date, several African governments have embarked on projects to expand and upgrade airport infrastructure in their respective countries. This has seen billions of dollars being invested in developing state of the art airport facilities across the continent. For instance, South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia and Uganda are at different stages of upgrading and expanding their airports. This infrastructural uplift is certainly a step in the right direction for aviation development in Africa. However, it is important to realise that modernising and expanding airport facilities is only one piece of the puzzle.

Airport services are more than just the physical attributes, convenience and ambience. In fact over the decades, the role of airports has evolved from being mere facilities for passenger processing, connecting passengers between ground and air transportation, to being multi-service providers of not only traditional airport functions but also such services as food and beverages, beauty treatments, conferencing, retail shopping and banking among others. Although a well designed and neatly constructed airport is the pride of any nation and obviously a good way to receive and send off travellers, it is not a guarantee of service excellence and the benefits thereof. It takes more than modern buildings, equipment and facilities to warm the hearts of customers and deliver an excellent service. With the expansion of airport services through the decades, passenger expectations have also become more distinct and diverse. Now, more than ever, airports need to ensure that passenger services are seamless and do not only meet but exceed their expectations. As Africa enters a new era in air transportation, it is vital to ensure that service providers are geared toward delivering a truly passenger driven service.

It could be argued that passenger choice of airport is sometimes restricted and they do not choose an airport as they would when making a choice amongst competing household brands stacked up on shelves in a supermarket. Why bother about service excellence and investing in customer service quality when after all, huge investments have already been made toward upgrading facilities and equipment? In any case, are facilities not all there is to an airport’s services?

At the outset, it is essential to understand that an airport is often the first and last point of contact for passengers to a destination. For international airports, a first time traveller’s perceptions of a nation (region or even continent) could easily be shaped within the first thirty or so minutes after touchdown. It is not therefore, just the reputation or choice of airport at stake, but the entire destination be it a town, city, nation, region or continent. In reality therefore, the frontline staff at an airport do not only represent their respective organisations, rather they are ambassadors of the entire destination.

Although travellers may not always have an option regarding the specific airport that they will use, they certainly may have a choice to make on whether or not to return to this town, city, country or region. Regardless of the facilities and equipment, a grumpy, inefficient and demotivated frontline staff can very well ruin the perceptions of a destination, losing out potential future economic benefits.

Given the significant role of tourism in Africa, perceptions of a destination are really important in generating repeat visits and subsequent income. The attitudes and actions of frontline staff are a critical part of the airport service quality equation. They can make or break the reputation and prospects of success for an entire destination. In anticipation of a passenger “boom” (which is already being witnessed in some parts of the continent) African airports need to prepare for handling large volumes of passengers. Relevant authorities ought to be continuously considering the various ways of ensuring that their frontline teams are capable of delivering excellent services consistently.

The world over, airports are generating significant revenues from non-aviation services. Some of the world’s leading airports have been able to generate considerable revenues from rentals and concessions for different services offered within and around terminal buildings. Airports nowadays, are public facilities where people meet, interact and pass time awaiting the departure and arrival of flights. Accordingly, there is need for amenities that cater for people’s diverse needs such as restaurants, retail shops, banks, spas, chapels and car parking among others. Research has since established that satisfied passengers are willing to spend their money in various outlets at the airport if the quality of service is satisfactory to them. So, for instance, efficient check-in and security procedures will reduce passenger processing time giving them ample time to shop around and enjoy other commercial services offered. Businesses at airports can even set premium prices for their products and increase their profits if passengers are satisfied and willing to spend their money. Ensuring excellent customer service therefore, also contributes toward the financial viability of airports. Regardless of the advanced facilities at an airport, the human element cannot be entirely replaced and there is need to make sure that all frontliners are armed with customer service skills that will encourage travellers to spend money on shopping and other activities. Airport authorities therefore, need to make appropriate adjustments to their daily operations in order to suit the growing traffic volumes.

Facilities are certainly not all there is to airport service quality. People are part of the service and their responsiveness, reliability, empathy and assurance to passengers inevitably forms an integral part of passenger service experience. Serving hundreds of travellers from diverse backgrounds, with varying needs and expectations can be a really daunting, daily task for anyone working on the frontline. With this anticipated increase in passenger traffic, handling them at any level can be an extremely uphill task if not well managed.

In light of the anticipated growth in passenger volumes, management should consider planning on how best to train, motivate and schedule their personnel to ensure that the quality of services does not get compromised. While acknowledging the inseparability of services, it is important to strike a balance between assertive and persuasive leadership. Frontline staff are internal customers, who if not well managed, can become disgruntled and fail to deliver services to the expectations of the external customers (passengers).

Teamwork is an indispensable trait of any successful airport customer services effort. It is crucial given that from time to time, staff from the different organizations and departments interact and influence each other’s performance. A seamless, truly passenger driven experience can only be attained if there is good team work. The handling agents, customs and immigration officials, security, flight crew, retailers and others all need to work together to achieve the common goal of attaining service excellence.

The airport passenger service experience is essentially a combination of different service encounters. The best way to analyse airport passenger services is to consider the service encounter cascade of a typical passenger at the airport. By carefully analysing each service encounter, appropriate measures can be taken to ensure that passenger expectations are met and exceeded. Even though responsibility of various service encounters (such as check-in, security checks, car parking, etc.) may very well be spread over different service providers or departments, passengers often view the airport encounter as one big experience. The intricacy of the airport system therefore, manifests in the wide variety of service providers serving passengers under one roof. Whereas, the overall airport experience is a summation of these individual encounters with different service providers, the ultimate responsibility for service quality lies with the airport authority. As passenger volumes increase it is imperative to maintain coherence in service delivery, dovetailing the different service encounters to create a well managed, seamless airport service.

In conclusion therefore, as Africa opens up its skies airport service quality needs to be given top priority. Although investment in infrastructure is commendable, it is not sufficient for the delivery of excellent airport services. Closer attention should be paid toward the role of customer service staff (including those behind the scenes) in providing seamless, exceptional services. The benefits of service excellence are vast but most importantly, it helps create a positive image of not only an airport but the entire destination - a holiday resort, town, country, region and indeed Africa as a whole. Sprucing up the physical attributes of an airport is a huge financial investment which can gobble up billions of dollars, yet a single act of empathy, responsiveness or reliability, can make that important difference between satisfactory and excellent service.