Case study
Airline carry-on baggage and family travel
Executive summary
Background
This research was conducted at an International Airport with Southwest Airlines in the fall of 2024.
Interviews included travelers, customer service agents, operations staff, ramp agents, and flight attendants.
The focus of the research was on understanding the experience for families traveling with young children, for the following topics:
Current carry-on & boarding process
Carry-on process impact on travelers
Boarding process impact on travelers
Carry-on process impact on operations
Actions
Qualitative research (contextual inquiry)
Qualitative research (on-site observations)
Market research
Physical Model, Workflow Model, Identity Model
IoT-focused system design
Service design
High-fidelity prototyping for consumer mobile
High-fidelity prototyping for staff desktop
High-fidelity prototyping for staff barcode scanning device
Insights
The result of this work was three core insights that impact Southwest Airlines…
Crowding at the gate creates a negative experience for traveler
Unclear pre-boarding stroller tagging requirements frustrate parents with young children
Last-minute carry-on checking causes operational challenges for staff and inconvenience for passengers
Family travel is the largest U.S. leisure segment, with 40% of all leisure trips
Opportunity space
Top stressors for parents
The most stressful aspects of air travel for parents with children under the age of 18 include:
49% Airport procedures (i.e. security, check-in)
47% Cost of tickets
34% Possibility of flight delays/cancellations
32% Packing and preparation
Southwest Airlines
Enterprise focus on airline productivity
This project fits two of Southwest Airlines’ operations focus areas, including operating quality and improvements to frontline staffing and tools.
Operating quality
Consistency, reliability, and safety of services, including on-time performance and customer satisfaction.
Frontline staffing & tools
Employees and technology ensuring smooth operations and a positive passenger experience.
Aircraft productivity
Measures aircraft efficiency, balancing flight hours, maintenance, and turnaround times for revenue generation.
Operating leverage
Ability to increase profits by growing revenue without proportional increases in fixed costs.
Strollers & wheelchairs are frequently mishandled
2023 at Southwest Airlines
Air Travel Consumer Report, Department of Transportation 2023
1.6% Strollers mishandled
0.5% Bags mishandled
130M Total flights
Qualitative research
Method
4 observation sessions
Observation sessions happened over one full day and chronicled multiple flight boardings. Jottings were translated to full field notes.
4 structured interviews
Follow up, hour long structured interviews were conducted with travelers in a remote format. Interviews were coded for themes. These interviews were conducted with Southwest travelers.
Learning objectives
Current carry-on and boarding process
Understand the dynamics, process and policies of the current state.
26 semi-structured interviews
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with airlines staff and travelers in the gate. Data was later coded for themes. Inclued interviews with Southwest travelers, flight attendants, ramp agents, supervisors, customer service, operations agents and managers.
Carry-on process impact on travelers
Understand traveler behaviors, emotions, challenges relating to carry-on baggage.
Boarding process impact on travelers
Understand traveler behaviors, emotions, challenges relating to boarding.
Carry-on process impact on operations
Understand airline staff’s involvement in the carry-on management.
Insight summary
Crowding at the boarding gate is a negative experience for travelers
Unclear pre-boarding stroller tagging requirements frustrate parents with young children
Last minute carry-on checking and management is a troublesome experience for airline staff and travelers
Insight 1
Crowding at the boarding gate is a negative experience for travelers
This impacts the ease of the boarding process for travelers, especially for travelers with strollers or wheelchairs.
Crowding during the boarding process causing negative emotions could impact the overall experience with the airline. It’s important to evaluate how this impacts operating quality and customer satisfaction.
Physical model
This Physical Model’s highlighted dots show the crowding zones at a gate. In all observation sessions there were unofficial perpendicular lines for family boarding and ADA boarding.
When parents lacked the right tags for strollers, they had to leave the family boarding line and run back to the customer service desk. Many times they missed family boarding while getting the stroller tag.
Southwest traveler, mother with young children
“I mean, it's really stressful. I don't really like how they pile you into this weird line . . . because we have a stroller and two kids . . . if you're not already in the spot, trying to maneuver to that with kids, you feel like you're offending people.”
Insight 2
Unclear pre-boarding stroller tagging requirements frustrate parents with young children
This impacts an important and valuable set of Southwest’s customers - family travelers.
The unclear tagging process impacts operations, doesn’t follow customer expectations, and disrupts the current boarding process. It’s important to evaluate how this impacts operating quality and customer satisfaction.
No stroller tag, missed family boarding
The operations agent says, “we’ll now start family boarding.”
She steps up and bends down to grab the child from the stroller.
The Operations Gate Agent glances at her stroller, “Did you get this tagged?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, looking visibly confused and concerned ... She gets out of line and gets the tag.
Observation session, excerpt from full field notes
A frequent occurrence
I ask the operations agent, who isn’t on duty and is escorting me through the airport, “Can you tell me more about what happened there with the mom and the stroller?” She explains that this happens at least once per flight.
“People don’t realize they need a ticket and get mad about missing family boarding. It often means rearranging people who are sitting already on the plane because kids are required to sit by their guardians on planes.”
Observation session, excerpt from full field notes
Proactive operations agents notify people with strollers before boarding starts
She says that proactive operations agents will go around the gate early and talk to everyone with a stroller and wheelchair and ensure that they know they need to go to the customer service desk in the terminal. She says that parents often expect it to be tagged when they are boarding, but Southwest cannot track the stroller in the system if they don’t have a computer-generated tag, which comes only through customer service at the boarding gate.
Observation session, excerpt from full field notes
Insight 3
Last minute carry-on checking and management is a troublesome experience for airline staff and travelers
Last minute gate checks had negative emotions tied to them for travelers and operational headaches for airline employees. It’s important to evaluate how this impacts operating quality and customer satisfaction.
Effort made by multiple airline teams to avoid last minute carry-on gate checking
“If [excess/oversize carry-on] makes it all the way to the flight attendants, we’ve failed as team members. It’s three tiers of proactive checks to avoid making their job any harder...”
Southwest operations agent
Carry-on luggage causing perceived delays
Delayed searching for carry-on storage
I mean, it certainly delays I think boarding a little bit when those upper compartments kind of do fill up and you've got people kind of searching the plane and they may be going all the way back realizing there's no space and then trying to get back to the front to see if there's any space that they missed.
Southwest traveler
Doesn’t want to hold the plane up
Recently on a flight to Detroit I saw passengers that had to come back out. I was glad I didn’t have a roller bag because I never want to hold the rest of the plane up.
Southwest traveler
Delays due to carry-on not fitting
It drives me crazy as a traveler when people bring luggage that is too big as a carry-on, and it delays us.
Southwest traveler
Solutions to test
IoT smart environment solution for parents with strollers
Check in desk
Boarding gate
Record strollers earlier
Digitally record specialty baggage at check-in, prompting traveler and employee reminders through a connected system
Nudge parents with a mobile push notification
Prompt travelers at the gate to get a tracking tag at the customer service desk
Empower ramp agent
Scan strollers or wheelchairs, add missing specialty luggage and ensure photo of condition is recorded