This week, a tweet tickled my whimsy. How can you not take a second look at any tweet featuring Charlie and his Golden Ticket? It led me on a search for something more rewarding than a lifetime supply of chocolate. I uncovered how Finnair and Helsinki Airport collaborate to ensure a top-notch air traveler experience.
The tweet sparked a nice bit of lively dialogue among those of us interested in the future of the Passenger Experience. We had a good time coming up with clever ideas on just how boarding passes might be made better. But that’s not really the story. The story is about the people asking about the perfect boarding pass—those mysterious Quality Hunters.
It turns out, the Quality Hunters are a joint initiative of Helsinki Airport and Finnair to improve the passenger experience.
In their own words:
Why are Finnair and Helsinki Airport doing this?
To serve you better. We are constantly working to improve our services and by inviting you into our development process, we can make sure that we are focusing on the right things and offering you the kind of services you want.
As Quality Hunters is a crowdsourcing initiative designed to improve the air travel service experience, your ideas will be used to make travelling smoother for everyone. We welcome all ideas from real travelers. Don’t be surprised to see your idea put into practice!
What a great way to get the job done. So many airport improvement and airline service improvement initiatives operate in silos. They are limited to “preferred passengers” of a particular airline, or travelers passing through a particular airport, without any significant knowledge exchange. It’s refreshing to see Finnair and Helsinki Airport approaching the question of passenger experience #PaxEx improvement openly, encouraging global participation.
You can watch their video presentation which explains a bit about the initiative:
These are the sorts of efforts our industry should be encouraging, and hopefully the good work of these Quality Hunters will inspire other airlines and airports to set off on their own expeditions. Well done, Finnair and Helsinki! We need more of this!
I applaud the efforts of the Quality hunters and mark it as a Flight Chic PASS
With five out of five silver lining points for keeping their eyes on the skies and their heads in the clouds.
Well done, all!
My thanks to fellow aviation industry writer and Runway Girl Maryann Simson @JetwayMJ, for giving me the heads-up on this wonderful crowdsourcing initiative.