Stop Going Digital!

There are countless initiatives aimed at reducing the cost of painless air transport for professionals in the sector. And yet they are the first to be impacted, as well as the customers, of course. The first, employees considered easily replaceable, I am talking about ground staff, are an easy target for cost hunters. Whenever they can be replaced by a computer tool, there is no hesitation. For the moment, the flight crews are not affected because the rule of one steward or hostess for 50 seats is still respected and there is little chance that this will change and removing part of the crew in the cockpit of planes is not for tomorrow when we know how to fly the aircraft from the ground and that, in theory, we could do without it.

This is how the all-digital approach is taking hold, with certain positive effects, but also the creation of new difficulties. I always wonder why this activity, which is so delicate, so complex, and basically so wonderful, is looking for a constant reduction in costs in order to increase the number of passengers to compensate for the lack of revenue linked to ever lower fares. This is all the more strange because the more it develops, the more air transport is attacked for its contribution to global pollution, while there is still no radical technological leap to achieve carbon neutrality. The latest innovation to date is the equipping of the two-storey cabins with seats or double-decker seats, as you wish. In this way, the filling coefficients could be further densified.

The first effect of this excessive digitalization is the disappearance of staff in the terminals, replaced either by computer tools linked to smartphones, or by terminals that are difficult to talk to and, for the last subjects, the provision of telephones where there were counters and agents to whom passengers could speak. Of course, I don’t forget that these new tools can be good. The release of boarding passes without going through a check-in counter is certainly a unanimously appreciated progress. Lost baggage tracing systems are becoming more and more efficient. More detailed analyses of operations and operating programs allow for very substantial fuel savings. The arrival of Artificial Intelligence will be very useful for the entire air transport industry, from the manufacture of aircraft to the rules for their maintenance. In short, we must not deny progress.

But on the other hand, I have the very strong impression that in all this evolution we have forgottenan important part of air transport, the customers over 65 years old, retirees who have, at least in most Western countries, significant financial means and a lot of free time that they use to visit the world. This segment of customers is in fact subject to the new digital devices that govern air transport without mastering them, sometimes they do not have the necessary iPhone, or even a computer and the Internet remains foreign to them. This is a considerable source of frustration, especially when you are in an airport environment where there is no one to talk to. Not all of them are accompanied by a younger relative who is perfectly capable of mastering these new tools.

Far be it from me to think that we should go back. First of all, it is not possible and it would certainly not be healthy in all respects. But I plead for the return to the entire air transport environment of agents whose gradual disappearance saddens me. Replacing an electronic terminal or a telephone that is often answered only by a machine with a person with whom you can talk would be real progress, would both bring appreciated comfort and remove stress that would be detrimental to the appreciation of this magnificent means of transport.

I will be told that it costs money. It is likely, but is the mad race to the lowest costs to justify permanently falling rates that no longer allow travel agents to be properly paid and to pay travel agents as they should be normal?

In our somewhat brutal world, let’s try to keep a little humanity and if air transport can set an example, it will be all the more accepted, including by those who see it as an enemy.