Airline Product Sense: Find and Fix the Most Painful Moment After a Ticket Is Bought

You are a product manager responsible for what an airline's customers experience after they have bought a ticket. That stretch covers everything from managing the reservation and preparing for the trip to the airport, the flight itself and what happens after landing. Decide which moment in it is the worst for travelers, and propose how you would improve it. Explain why you chose that moment over the others, which travelers you would focus on, what you would build and in what order, and how you would measure whether it worked. ```hint Compare moments before fixing one List the steps from purchase to arrival and beyond, then compare them on how often they go wrong, how much a traveler loses when they do, and how much of the fix is within the airline's reach. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Is this a specific airline, or can I choose its type: a full-service carrier with lounges and loyalty tiers, or a low-cost carrier that sells seats and bags as add-ons? - Does my scope cover only digital touchpoints (app, website, notifications, kiosks), or can the improvement change airport and operations processes too? - Should I serve all travelers, or may I focus on one group, such as business travelers, families or people who fly once or twice a year? - Which outcome matters most to the airline here: satisfaction and repeat bookings, lower customer-service cost, or revenue? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A map of the post-booking journey and a reasoned choice of the worst moment, weighing frequency, severity and how much the airline can influence it. - A clear traveler segment and the specific pain points it faces at that moment. - Solutions tied to those pain points and prioritized by impact and effort within airline operating constraints. - Success metrics centered on traveler outcomes, with guardrails on cost, revenue and operations. - Risks and trade-offs, including travelers who cannot or will not use digital tools. ### Follow-up Questions - How would your plan change for a low-cost carrier that earns much of its margin from fees for changes, bags and seats? - If the moment you chose happens to a given traveler only a few times a year, how would you test your improvement and attribute results to it? - Your improvement raises traveler satisfaction, but customer-service volume does not fall. Do you keep investing, and how do you decide?