Now Boarding: Mobile Payments

If it seems like air travel these days is a lot more confusing and unpleasant than ever, you’re sharing this belief with many other users. One potential way to at least address some of this came from a new study recently released: airlines need to bring in mobile payment systems, if for no other reason than the customers really want this option.

Essentially, the study found that where mobile payments were once just a nice option to include, and not particularly crucial to overall operations, now they’re vital to customer satisfaction figures and, thus, ongoing success.

Several key points are driving this overall development. These points include a growing number of young passengers that prefer mobile payments, a growing amount of use in the non-travel segments as well—which could mean more cash overall coming in beyond the simple pay for a fair approach—and the ongoing rise of passengers packing smartphones.

However, there are problems with putting such a strategy in place. It turns out that an insufficient number of passengers are actively demanding mobile payments options (at least that’s what 39 percent of survey respondents said). Further, supporting the various mobile payment options out there is a difficult and costly process, so said between 30 and 41 percent of surveyed users.

There are even some regional and cultural issues to consider; the growing mobile payments picture in China, as well as the rest of Asia, is forcing new fundamental reconsiderations in light of growing middle classes and increasing travel demand.

What’s surprising here is that while there’s clearly more demand for mobile payments systems at the ticket gate, in the airport, and on the plane itself, there’s actually a resistance to putting these systems in play. Users apparently aren’t barging into United boardrooms and shrieking “Why won’t you take Apple Pay at the gate??”. If you actually have to be told things like that, over a sufficiently large number of customers, then you’ll likely end up failing.

Studies like these serve to underscore the critical demand required to bring such materials in play, and will likely help kick off a new growth in mobile payments in the travel market. We travel with our smartphones anyway, so why not take the next big step and let our devices help us travel?