As airlines progress with plans to become modern retailers, the importance of a smooth payments experience grows in importance. Yet outdated airline payments risk undermining efforts to turn airports into retailing hotspots and are the root-cause of traveler frustration, according to a newly published report.
Drawing on qualitative research from business psychology firm, Innovationbubble, and a multi-market survey with travelers undertaken by market research firm, Opinium – this report, jointly commissioned by Outpayce from Amadeus and Worldline, explores the current state of paying for airline services at the airport.
Retailing Ready: towards a traveler-centric airport payment experience highlights several airport payments pain-points when purchasing services from airlines:
– Some 54 per cent of travelers have been asked to change location and re-queue to pay for services.
– Some 57 per cent of travelers have been asked to pay with a less robust method, like swiping their card.
– Airlines have waived ancillary service fees for more than half of travelers (56%) because they’ve been unable to accept payment.
– Some 45 per cent of travelers confirmed they would be more likely to buy additional airline services at the airport if they could pay with their preferred method.
Travelers rank airports third from eight options in terms of locations where it is most frustrating to encounter a payments issue, below the supermarket and restaurants, but above online retail, public transport, hotels, shopping centres, gas stations.
With two-thirds of travelers buying an ancillary service at the airport ‘at least sometimes’ and respondents spending an average of €263 on airline and airport related ancillary services per trip, payments pain points at the terminal already contribute to revenue leakage for airlines.
According to the report, airlines are rarely in complete control of payments at the terminal and must rely on legacy shared infrastructure that restricts travelers from paying in the way they choose at key service points like check-in, boarding and in-flight.
However, using new approaches that integrate modern payments technology with an airline’s underlying IT systems can support a consistent and unified payments experience at multiple airports according to the report.
Jean Christophe Lacour, global head of products, Outpayce said: “Through the research, travellers expressed frustration at having to walk to another desk to pay and needing to search through their bag for a payment method the airline can accept.
“As airlines transform to become modern retailers, we have a great opportunity to ensure passengers can pay easily using a card or a digital wallet anywhere in the terminal.”
Travellers confirmed that cards remain king as the preferred way to pay for additional services at the airport, with contactless transactions being slightly more popular than Chip & Pin.
However, a significant 35 per cent of travellers prefer to pay with a digital wallet, like Apple Pay or Google Pay, underlining the rapid adoption of such methods.
How would you like to pay for additional airline services at the terminal?
Card (Contactless) – 46%
Card (Chip & Pin) – 44%
Digital Wallet – 35%
Cash – 28%
Local payment method – 21%
Secure link via text or QR Code – 19%
About the research: the survey was conducted by independent research firm Opinium during quarter four of 2024 with 4,500 travelers from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and Singapore.
