In 2022, the aviation industry was still battling with post-pandemic recovery. Thankfully, the recovery is nearly completed, and the industry is now ready to bring in new trends to ease travellers’ convenience. The expected trends of the airline industry match the airport passengers’ top priority: comfort. Even though the airline industry has successfully overcome the obstacles thrown by the pandemic, it is still trying to overcome new challenges, which will be visible in the form of new trends this year. Here is the list of the expected trends for aviation in 2023.
Digital Revolution
The airline industry will undergo a digital revolution to ease the convenience of passengers. Most of the digital processes in the industry will be visible in the form of robotics and automation, especially in the manufacturing unit of aerospace. However, the digital revolution elements may extend to touch the end-users too. The digital revolution’s impact is already visible through in-flight WiFi for different airlines.
For example, United Airlines uses UnitedWifi, and Alaska Airlines uses AlaskaWiFi to give its passengers internet connectivity even during the flight. However, such WiFi connectivity is limited to a few prominent airlines, but in 2023, it is expected that many airlines will give this facility to their passengers.
Bleisure Travel
The pandemic gave enough reason to people to mix business with leisure travel giving rise to bleisure travel. In such travel, the passengers prefer to travel during the midday instead of the highly preferred start and end of the day. Similarly, travelling will become common throughout the week instead of just Friday and Monday. However, only time will travel whether bleisure travel remains a trend for just a year or two or will become a permanent trend for flight passengers.
Green Air Travel
The pressure of meeting the sustainable development goals is all the more substantial because the end year is coming close. Therefore, it is not unsurprising that for many airlines, green air travel is a top priority. Along with sustainable development goals, increased consumer awareness makes airlines take green air travel seriously. As a result, this year, there is a high chance that many airlines will switch to sustainable aviation fuels to take a step towards green air travel.
Accessibility And Inclusion
In 2023, the requirements of individuals facing disabilities will occupy the front seat in airports. Last year, the Customer Experience Global Summit highly emphasised accessibility to people with disabilities. Subsequently, it is expected that airports will work on making autonomous wheelchairs available along with larger restrooms that can easily accommodate wheelchairs.
Airlines Hiring
Many airlines laid off pilots and other airline staff to survive the pandemic. However, now things are returning to normal, the airline sector will see high hiring. In addition, reports indicate that many airlines are conducting cadet programmes to ease the staff shortage. Consequently, cadet programmes are no longer self-funded programmes. However, the number of pilots enrolled in pilot training drastically dropped in the last three years. The impact of the same is expected to be visible in 2024 if this year fails to create a balance between the demand and supply of the pilot.
Ancillary Services
In 2023, airlines must shift their focus from simply selling more seats. Instead, this year, the airlines will shift their focus to staying profitable while providing top-notch services to their customers. Even though ancillary services are not new in the airline industry, they will gain more importance in 2023 by giving airline passengers granular choices.
The granular choices are already visible for many airlines in the form of third-party services like accommodation and car rental. Now, these choices will further increase as the airlines brainstorm how they can further increase their revenue.
2023 is an optimistic year for the airline industry because it has overcome many obstacles posed by the pandemic. Now that the impact of the pandemic is fading away, the aviation industry is ready to rise back but sustainably. Even though this year will continue a few previous patterns, many critical themes will also give rise to new trends to improve the operational process. Furthermore, the trends in the aviation industry this year will not limit themselves only to the end-user but will also run behind the scene to include the manufacturing and other departments.