- Boarding time reduced to 7 minutes
- Sel tag check in now takes average of 3 minutes
- Aer Lingus moves up punctuality ladder
Aer Lingus says it has shaved seven minutes off average boarding times by “simplifying” boarding procedures.
Aer Lingus says it now takes an average of three minutes to check in luggage on the express bag drop installation at Dublin Airport in contrast with the previous 15-20 queuing time.
Cleaning at outstations has been cut as part of the on-time operation.
The investment has also allowed the airline to increase check-in capacity without requiring extra terminal space.
Aer Lingus has been the most punctual airline in Dublin for each of the first eight months of 2016 in what the airline says is a complete reversal of its earlier record.
Air passengers who flew with Aer Lingus this summer may have noticed new practices at check-in and boarding. The airline has been cracking down on lateness, changing how it invites passengers to board and encouraging flyers from Dublin Airport to use new self-service stations to weigh and tag their luggage.
Mike Rutter, of Aer Lingus told Laura Slattery of The Irish Times (see here): “Like many large organisations, over the years we had become too complex. We weren’t paying enough attention to making sure that our on-time punctuality was at the level it should be. What we let slip was an understanding of one of the main reasons people travel, which is that they basically want to get somewhere on time. We know if we don’t close the gate with at least 15 minutes to go before departure we’re not going to be able to close the aircraft up and get it away. Aer Lingus has always had a strong reputation for going that last mile to get the last person on board the aircraft, even if they took a delay for it. There’s a lot of good equity in the brand as a result of our helpfulness in some strange places where we have rescued our good Irish guests.
Another change is to call priority boarders before everybody else. Aer Lingus’s view historically was that a complicated boarding process was best for guests. Whereas actually most guests want a simple boarding process. People understand the rules, they’re not wondering: Am I in row 23 or 24? Asking at the gate to hand over a trolley case for placing in the hold is also part of the strategy. We can take about 100 wheelie bags in the lockers, so if we have 120, we know we’re going to have a problem before we start. Instead of trying to re-provision the flight on every turnaround, we re-provision it on every other turnaround. Two staff members now board the aircraft, not the cast of Ben-Hur.
