What Airlines Can Learn Through Customer Experience Analytics

It used to be that airline travel was a luxury. There was a time when people traveling on airplanes dressed up in fancy suits and dresses as if they were going to an event, because that’s exactly what flying through the friendly skies meant to them. Today, airlines are more like giant flying buses. Air travel is a necessity in a globalized society, with people traveling cross country and across the world every day. Stratifyd analyzed data from over 44,000 reviews on Facebook for major airlines servicing every part of the globe. We wanted to see how customers rated their experience getting to their destination and what implications that could have for airlines moving forward.

Stratifyd analyzed and compared 7 of the top airlines in the country to assess their customer experience and give them ratings on a scale of 1 to 5. We looked specifically at how travelers rated their overall customer experience, how they felt about their overall comfort level on the plane, and their reaction to missed connecting flights. Below are some of the results.

We analyzed reviews from American, United, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, Spirit, and Alaska Airlines. Our AI powered data analytics platform assessed sentiment scores for customer satisfaction for overall travel experience. Below are the results.

• Alaska Airlines rated 4.35 out of 5
• Southwest Airlines rated 4.33 out of 5
• Delta Airlines rated 4.33 out of 5
• JetBlue Airways rated 4.30 out of 5
• United Airlines rated 3.22 out of 5
• American Airlines rated 3.10 out of 5
• Spirit Air rated 2.49 out of 5

We also analyzed one of the biggest detractors of customer experience for airline travel, delayed flights and missed connections. For nearly 2000 reviews that mentioned missing connections, we determined the causes of these delays based on different issues.

• 44% of missed connections were due to weather.
• 37% of missed connections were due to mechanical issues.
• 10% of missed connections were due to a late arriving flight.
• 6% of missed connections fell under miscellaneous reasons

Stratifyd’s platform can also identify issues within a specific time frame and measure customer reaction to a turn of events. Between January 25 and January 27, 2016, a massive winter storm slammed into the Northeastern U.S., causing more than 1600 flights to be delayed. We analyzed customer sentiment during this time. On January 25, in the thick of cancellations and delays, customer sentiment dropped to -2.2, then as flights began to take off and passengers were rebooked, sentiment rose on January 26 to .75 and then to 3.1 on January 27 as passengers began to make it home.

Stratifyd’s AI powered platform can look at data from a variety of angles and provide deeper insight on specific issues in specific timeframes. Unsupervised machine learning and natural language understanding paired with a robust visualization allows our clients to see all aspects of their data and create a clear picture of their customer satisfaction.

Originally published at www.stratifyd.com.