Guidelines for Improving Airport Services for International Customers (2016)

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1 S U M M A R Y This report presents guidelines for improving airport services for international customers that are intended for use by all airport stakeholders—airport terminal owners and operators, airlines, government agencies, and other service providers—responsible for interacting with international customers on a person-to-person basis or by providing the terminal facilities for customers during their airport journey. The airport services discussed in this guidebook range from in-person customer service provided by a wide range of entities to emerging tech- nologies that airports are using to deliver information to individual travelers. The physical environment in which those services are provided and the means for conveying information also is discussed. The purpose of the guidelines is to provide relevant tools and appropriate information to stakeholders at U.S. airports to improve the airport experience for international customers. The guidance includes a comprehensive description of the essential elements every terminal should have to create a cohesive and predictable experience for international departing, arriving, and connecting passengers at U.S. airports. It also identifies notable innovations that have been implemented at airports in the United States and worldwide to enhance the customer experience. The guidebook is organized around the passenger journey to allow stakeholders to exam- ine the essential elements for a particular part of the passenger journey that they would like to improve. The journey segments include the following: • International departing passengers • International arriving passengers • Connecting passengers • Precleared arriving passengers Each of these journey segments is broken down into each step of the passenger’s experi- ence at the airport. The customer’s needs and expectations are described at the beginning of each journey segment. Within each step, a description of the basic requirements and notable innovations is provided for each component of the customer experience: customer service, physical environment, and information dissemination. The guidebook provides the following tools to facilitate the review of the international passenger experience at an individual airport and support decision-making for implementing new services. • Journey segment evaluation tool: provides a graphical illustration of the basic require- ments and notable innovations for every step of each journey segment. This graphic can be used by airport stakeholders to perform a high-level examination of the facilities and services provided at their airport. Guidelines for Improving Airport Services for International Customers

2 Guidelines for Improving Airport Services for International Customers • Implementation considerations: provides a high-level description of the costs and ben- efits associated with each notable innovation so that stakeholders can make a preliminary determination whether the notable innovation should be considered for implementation at their airport. The guidebook concludes with a description of the “Gateway of the Future” which sum- marizes the basic requirements and notable innovations that airports could implement to enhance the customer experience. Because wayfinding signage and digital information play an important role in the inter- national customer experience, Appendix A is a detailed description of common sign design elements and Appendix B is a primer on planning, deploying, operating, and maintaining a digital information program.