The Future of Air Travel

In early 2020, this project brought together 17 partners and nearly 130 students for more than a semester around the critical moment faced by the airline industry during the spring 2020 COVID pandemic.

THE « FIT TO FLY » PROJECT

APRIL 2020 – THE CRISIS HITS

 

In early April, as governments around the world were closing their doors to travellers. the aviation industry experienced its worst crisis in its 100-year history. On May 5, Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa group, tells his shareholders: "In less than 65 days, we have returned to the levels of 65 years ago in terms of air traffic volume." The main question at that time in the industry is, how long can this crisis possibly last? 3 months, 6 months or even 12 months?

 

MAY 2020 – THE ESAC INITIATIVE

 

In May, the FIT Chair launches the Initiative EDHEC Students Against the Crisis (ESAC) to help companies from all industries to understand the possible impact of the sanitary crisis to their business, systematically explore possible solutions and develop recovery scenarios. 33 students worked with ten companies, spending a total of 1 300 hours of voluntary work. The Air Travel project was built on an existing partnership with the Lufthansa Group. To take a systemic industry perspective the EDHEC FIT Chair invited additional partners to the project, including, Amadeus, Airbus, Celfocus, Emirates, Ferrovial, Frontex, Global Load Control, Heathrow Airport, IATA, Schiphol Airport and Thales.

JUNE 2020 – RADAR WITH DRIVERS OF CHANGE

 

n the first phase drivers of change were identified through a 360-degree scan. The first workshop focussed on developing a short-term radar on the factors that will drive solutions for imminent problems and short-term recovery of the industry. The most important factors include: decontamination & disinfection technology, service digitalisation, alternative transport technologies, willingness to travel, Trust in health & safety measures etc.

 

 

JULY 2020 – SCENARIO WORKSHOP

 

The second industry workshop applied a scenario sprint methodology which built on the co-creation of scenarios. Participants could leverage on the insights on the factors as well as their own insights and intuition. The workshop identified four plausible scenarios.

 

  1. Comeback – The sky’s the limit (Pandemic under control, Global economy rebounds)
  2. The Slow-down – Staying at home (Steady-slow growth, flygskam, climate awareness)
  3. Resurgence – Let’s fly again (private air travel increased, innovation is the key)
  4. Pivot – Air travel for the few (flying is for the rich, pandemic ongoing, limited recovery)

 

 

SEPTEMBER 2020 – 124 MSC MARKETING STUDENTS JOIN THE QUEST

 

In September, the Chair entrusted the 124 students of EDHEC's Master of Science Marketing program, as part of their course on "Foresight and Strategic Design", with a practical case study: to study the challenges and solutions specific to a group of clients to navigate the health crisis.

SEPTEMBER 2020 – PERSONAS

 

Using existing reports and customer interviews the students co-constructed 8 personas, which are extreme customers representing a specific customer segment. For each persona the students collaboratively built a profile, a mood board and a key data sheet.

OCTOBER 2020 – WORKSHOP ON PROMISING CUSTOMER SEGMENTS

 

Working across the partnership of airlines, airports, manufacturers, think tanks and travel services providers the most promising and least promising air travel segments were identified:

 

Most promising (next 24 months)

 

 

  • High frequency leisure traveller
  • Visiting friends & relatives traveller
  • Future traveller
  • Heavy business traveller
  • Business traveller

 

Least promising (next 24 months)

 

  • Medical travellers
  • Pilots & Crew
  • Pensioners
  • Migrant travellers
  • Low frequency leisure traveller

 OCTOBER 2020 – SOLUTIONS

 

Building on the personas and the challenges in current passenger journeys the participating companies prioritized the solutions for the pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight challenges.

 

 

Fig 5 : priorisation of strategic solutions based on value and speed to solution

 

Pre-Flight

 

Testing facilities is the key to gaining public confidence to enable them to align themselves with the destination country’s COVID-19 sanitary crisis protocols. Through easy quick and reliable access to testing facility in the airport premise would help increase the customer satisfaction.
Live airport traffic map is a critical part in managing the flow of passenger traffic inside the airport and through live traffic governance instantaneous real time decisions can be taken by the airport authorities to manage the flow of passenger traffic to abide by COVID-19 rules.

 

In Flight

 

Explaining the rules with respect to the pandemic of the destination country is a critical aspect to gain the trust of the passenger.
Thermal cameras inside flights would also enable airlines to have a secondary layer of safety net to protect the health of the passengers of the passengers. Instantaneous decisions taken in-flight (e.g.: isolation of passenger) and after arrival ( e.g.: proper health arrangements) would enable the confidence of the customers to a greater extent.

 

Post Flight

 

Electronic queuing during disembarkment would help airports to manage crowds and would automatically promote a sense of wellbeing among the passengers.

 

CONCEPTUALISED SOLUTIONS FROM THE STUDENTS

 

The students came out with a plethora of innovative yet feasible solutions by aligning the recommendation and the personas to improve the airline industry.

« TRAVEL & CARE » LOYALTY PROGRAM

 

A loyalty program designed for eager travellers who want to explore the world but do not yet have a stable financial situation. Their task is to complete missions for environmental organizations such as beach cleaning, charity support in exchange for points added to their personal customer account. And after earning enough points, users can use them to plan their next trip and have access to different kinds of offers (special access, discounts etc).

APPLICATION EXTENSION (APP) FOR AIRPORT SERVICES

 

A solution to prevent travellers moving too much in the airport by providing a delivery service added to the airport application service that will allow travellers to order food on the application while waiting for onboarding. Those deliveries will be made by employees or can be automated using small electric vehicles. The airport application would also offer a wide range of entertainment such as music, news, reading, and other content.

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GREEN LOUNGE EVOLUTION

 

An eco-responsible lounge service for airport and airline lounges called Green Lounges. The first service provided will be to rethink the energy management in lounges to reduce the consumption of energy. Secondly providing eco-friendly services such as eco-friendly themed lounges decor, sustainably curated food menu, gyms with green sport machines, sustainable cutlery, and furniture. This solution will be supported with technological innovations such as intelligent wi-fi water leak detectors, grey water system, green AC system, Pavegen floor that converts kinetic energy from walking into storable electricity.

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A FOCUS ON THE PARTNERS

SUMMARY OF LEARNINGS AND PARTNER BENEFITS

 

  • Ideas and solutions for common problems - specific strategic and practical ideas to move businesses forward
  • Access for Foresight platforms
  • Work with thought leaders in the industry
  • Opportunity to get fresh insights and ideas from talented students

A PARTNER TESTIMONIAL

Les équipes impliquées ont rapidement gagné en crédibilité et en confiance de la part des partenaires industriels, grâce à leur capacité d’analyse, à leur identification des principaux défis et à la résolution de problèmes connexes. Leur approche en 4 étapes de la planification de scénarios et les scénarios développés étaient très complets. De plus, la liste des facteurs et le balayage des signaux ont été méticuleux tout au long du projet. Avec un champ d'application aussi large, le secteur de l'aviation a définitivement bénéficié de leurs précieuses contributions et de leurs solutions innovantes.

Jorg-Stefan FRITZ, Lufthansa

Jorg-Stefan FRITZ

Jorg-Stefan FRITZ

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

The Foresight, Innovation & Transformation Chair would like to thank its partners for all the co-creations made during this project:

 

  • Stephan COPERT, Head of Projects, and Innovation at IATA
  • Cedric RENARD, General manager at Emirates France
  • Jörg FRITZ, Director of Flight Operations Digital Strategy Group Airlines at Lufthansa
  • Sven TAUBERT, Head of Corporate Foresight & Market Intelligence at Lufthansa
  • Lionel AVEZOU, Senior manager, airline innovation at Amadeus
  • Didier BOULET, Chief Design Officer at Thales
  • Matt MULLAN, Strategic Design & Corporate UX at Thales
  • Catherine ROY, Lead Designer and Design Center Quebec leader at Thales
  • Nuno PERIQUITO, Head of marketing at Celfocus
  • Bruno SILVA SANTOS. Account executive at Celfocus
  • Sholeh BEHZADPOUR, Innovation Technologist at Heathrow
  • Carlos DEL RIO, Innovation manager for Airports at Ferrovial
  • Ismael ORDONEZ, Business Planning Project Director at Ferrovial
  • Roswitha BECKER, Managing Director of Global Load Control
  • Zachary STEGLIN, Senior Manager Strategy, and Innovation at Global Load Control
  • Markus BECKER, Strategic Delivery Executive at Global Load Control
  • Kien HEANG, Co-founder and CCO at Moove Technologies
  • Marieke SMIT, Manager Group Strategy at Schipol

 

The FIT Chair would also like to thank the 124 students of the EDHEC Marketing program and the 14 volunteers of the EDHEC Students Against the Crisis initiative who worked on the project.

Download the summary of the FIT TO FLY project.

Finally, thank you to the media who reported on this initiative: