Gamifying the Airport Experience With Artificial Intelligence

Airline companies are leveraging gamification and social features in airports to enhance passenger experiences, boosting brand loyalty and revenue.

The journey from reaching an airport to catching your flight is not easy. You have to go through multiple stages, like checking in, handing over the luggage, completing security checks, and finding the boarding gate. Even after passing all these stages, you may have to wait at the airport due to delays, weather, and many other factors. Many flyers face this problem. In the year 2022 alone, around 3,781 million people across the globe traveled by air.

Due to the lengthy procedures, passengers are required to spend long hours at the airport. To help them make the most out of their time, airports can introduce AI-based gamification and social features. This can be in the form of personalized rewards, engaging content, and much more. Here’s how airports can enhance user experience with the help of AI-based Gamification and social features.

Role of Artificial Intelligence in the Gamification and Social Features in Airports

Gamification is the application of game elements (like points, rewards, rules, etc.) in activities outside of gaming.

For instance, encouraging an individual to book tickets online by providing coupons and discounts. This helps industries to keep the user engaged with their product or service. Artificial intelligence has revolutionized several industries by improving customer experience and thus increasing brand loyalty. Airlines have already deployed loyalty programs like the “Frequent Flyer Program.” But with the increasing competition, airports can make use of modern technology to enhance such initiatives further.

1. Rewarding Passengers' Loyalty

Airports can incentivize customers by providing them with personalized rewards. Modern solutions like SkyAIde can offer features like AI integration to airline businesses. Using machine learning (ML), airports can track certain patterns of individual flyers. These patterns can be used to give rewards that match the flyer’s requirements and preferences. Over time, airports can offer real-time offers by predicting the behavior of individual passengers, which can lead to further brand loyalty.

2. Providing an Entertaining Experience to Passengers

Apart from rewards, airports can also use AI to create engaging content for the flyers. With the use of cameras integrated with computer vision, airports can form engaging quests. For instance, airports can implement gamified apps to set simple games unlocking certain areas. When the flyer reaches a certain area, i.e., the lounge, their app will unlock the area and grant certain rewards. As the flyer explores further parts of the airport, they will receive more rewards like coupons or discounts.

3. Improving the On-Flight Experience

Apart from entertainment, airports can integrate informative content to engage their passengers. For example, a gamified exhibition in Frankfurt’s airport featured a behind-the-scenes look at the workings of an airport. This included AR tablets, live flight tracking, VR-based luggage conveyor belt rides, and more. Similarly, PeriscapeVR collaborated with JFK International Airport to launch VR Experience Center at Terminal 4. This center included incredible VR experiences like deep space exploration and undersea whale encounters.

To Sum Up

Gamification and Social Features in airports are powerful tools to enhance customer experience and thus increase brand loyalty. It can be used to learn the passenger’s flying patterns and use that information to provide relevant rewards. Apart from providing entertainment, AI-driven data can also be leveraged to gain insights into the user’s behavior and improve customer service. So instead of dreading the long delays, passengers can thoroughly enjoy their airport experience.