What Passengers Expect From Airlines During Disruptions

This is The Passenger Perspective and it is the second part of a series called The State of Play, taken from a keynote delivered at Grounded, 2025.

Passengers don’t live in a vacuum. Their expectations aren’t shaped by other airlines - but by everyday experiences with companies like Starbucks, Spotify, and Marriott that deliver immediacy, frictionlessness, and personalisation as a standard. In aviation, effective service delivery is not just about moving passengers from point A to point B. Today’s customers bring expectations shaped by their daily interactions with world-class consumer brands, and those expectations are redefining what “good service” means – especially during moments of disruption.

Passengers Don’t Just Compare Airlines to Airlines

When evaluating their travel experience, passengers aren’t only comparing one airline to another. They’re comparing airlines to global leaders in customer experience. These companies – Amazon, Netflix, Uber, etc. – have raised the benchmark for what constitutes “good service.”

Consider a few examples: 

- Starbucks uses in-app purchases and skip-the-line pick-up to ensure seamless delivery, while offering personalisation down to the amount of ice or the temperature of the milk.

- Spotify anticipates personal preferences with eerily accurate playlists customized based on past listening habits, down to the day of the week and the time of the day.

- The Marriott Bonvoy App lets guests tailor their stay down to their preferred type of pillow with the touch of a button.

These experiences are immediate, frictionless, and personalised. They meet the expectations of today’s consumers and upwardly redefine the standard for what effective and satisfactory service should look like. 

Passengers don’t leave those standards at home when they come to the airport – they carry them with them. And when disruptions occur, the gap between expectation and reality becomes especially glaring. 

The Research: What Passengers Value in Disruptions

To better understand passenger expectations, Grounded partnered with the Center for Research in Marketing and Consumer Psychology at Reykjavík University.

More than 500 passengers were surveyed and asked to make trade-offs between recovery provisions in two scenarios: a three-hour delay and a cancellation. Using conjoint analysis, the study uncovered how passengers assign value to different recovery outcomes.

Two Categories of Recovery Attributes

Tangible fixes – rebooking, hotel accommodation, vouchers, compensation.

Intangible fixes – empathy, transparency, timeliness, apology.

Tangibles fix the problem. Intangibles fix the feeling. Both are critical to recovery.

Why Intangibles Matter More Than You Think

Market simulations revealed a clear pattern: passengers place less value on outcomes that offered only tangibles. Instead, outcomes that combined functional solutions with empathy and transparency captured the majority preference – even when some tangible fixes were excluded.

For example:

• In the cancellation scenario, a balanced mix of tangibles and intangibles outperformed purely tangible remedies – even without compensation.
• In the delay scenario, nearly 68% of passengers preferred the balanced approach – even when it meant giving up a voucher.

The takeaway: intangibles can offset the need for extensive tangible remedies, allowing airlines to achieve cost savings while still satisfying passengers.

While functional fixes are still necessary – restoring trust in the moment – intangible remedies define how passengers remember the disruption (and the airline) weeks or months later. This recall shapes loyalty, word-of-mouth, and long-term retention. 

Different Passengers, Different Needs

Segmentation analysis – clustering passengers into groups based on similar preferences – showed clear customer heterogeneity. While rebooking and compensation were top priorities for some groups, others placed greater value on intangibles like empathy and transparency.

This reinforces a critical point: one-size-fits-all recovery is not effective. It wastes resources on remedies that some passengers don’t want and risks alienating those who prioritise emotional support.

The Power of Passenger Choice

The research also revealed a strong desire for choice. When passengers were given options – such as selecting their new flight, hotel, or compensation method – preference levels soared.

In fact, options combined with immediacy and transparency captured 78% of passenger preference.

Why Choice Matters

• Respects individuality
• Provides autonomy
• Reduces stress during disruptions
• Eliminates guesswork for airlines by revealing what passengers truly value

Key Takeaways for Airlines

From this research, two opportunities stand out for airline leaders:

Strengthen intangibles

Deliver empathy, transparency, and timeliness alongside functional fixes.

Remember: functional fixes restore trust in the moment; intangible fixes shape how your airline is remembered in the long run.

Offer choice

Let passengers participate in their recovery.

Empowering passengers with autonomy not only improves fairness perceptions but also strengthens loyalty and reduces operational strain. 

Ultimately, recovery that fixes the problem, fixes the feeling, and respects passenger heterogeneity through choice is the new standard for the modern passenger experience.

Why This Matters for Airline Leaders in Customer Experience

For Heads of Customer Experience and disruption management teams, the implications are clear:

• Empathy and transparency are not “soft” strategies – they are core business drivers.
• Choice is not just a nice-to-have – it is a loyalty multiplier.
• Balancing intangibles with tangibles reduces costs while increasing retention. 

Airlines that adapt to evolving customer expectations will not only manage disruptions more effectively but also build trust, goodwill, and long-term profitability.

Fix the problem. Fix the feeling. Give passengers control — that’s the new baseline for disruption recovery.

Want to Be Part of the Future of Disruption Management?

Join us at Grounded 2026
📍 Reykjavik, Iceland   Sept. 2–3
💡 150+ airline leaders. Real-world case studies. Workshops. Zero Exhibitors.

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