Cut the Time Travelers Waste at Airports, From Home to Gate and Gate to Curb

Passengers often complain about how much of their trip is spent at the airport. What would you build or change to improve their experience? ```hint Split the timeline Walk through a trip from leaving home to boarding, and from landing to leaving the airport. For each stretch, ask which time is a required step and which is waiting, and why the waiting happens. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Who are we: the airport operator, an airline, or an app that covers part of the trip, such as the ride to and from the airport? - Should the answer cover departing passengers, arriving passengers, travelers connecting between flights, or all of them? - Is the goal to cut the minutes spent, or to make the unavoidable minutes more useful and less stressful? - Should the answer target large international hubs or smaller domestic airports? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A map of the airport journey that separates required steps from waiting and buffer time, for departures and arrivals - A chosen passenger segment and the reason its time pain is the most worth solving - Solutions that act on the causes of lost time, prioritized by impact and by what the chosen player can actually control - Success metrics tied to minutes saved, with guardrails such as missed flights - Risks including dependence on airline and airport data, and the accuracy of time predictions ### Follow-up Questions - Your recommendation tells a passenger they can leave home later, and they miss their flight. How do you design for that risk? - How would the solution change for an international departure or a tight connection? - Airports earn money when passengers spend time in shops and restaurants. How do you work with an airport that does not want passengers to spend less time inside?