Weighing those findings

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Martin Moodie
Martin Moodie is the Founder & Chairman of The Moodie Report.

A new report says that 4 million UK passengers miss their flights every year “because they are busy shopping in the airport”.

The survey of 1,000 UK consumers was commissioned by NCR Corporation from Opinion Research Corporation.

It said: “2% of those surveyed (equivalent to 4 million passengers*) admit to having missed flights because they were shopping or dining. “

Quite what this ‘finding’ is meant to tell us, I’m not sure. Well actually I am, it’s a plug for NCR’s wayfinding solutions.  NCR Vice President for Western Europe Ben Gale said: “The use of new mobile wayfinding solutions can play a key role in enabling passengers to find the stores and services they want in the airport and still make it to the gate on time.”

I agree with Mr Gale on that point entirely, and it’s good to see airports such as Dubai, Schiphol, Liverpool and others developing good apps with integrated terminal mapping, if not fully fledged wayfinding.

But somehow I doubt the numbers quoted above. If 4 million passengers missed a flight in the UK last year because they were shopping or dining, I am an Australian. And if it’s true, it’s a very sad indictment of the intelligence of the people concerned (the travellers not the Australians). That’s my finding.

*The Civil Aviation Authority reports that UK airports handled 219 million passengers in 2011.

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  • I think you’re being very polite, Martin, to say you “doubt the numbers”…the figures look like a load of tosh, as we would say in Glasgow!

    I realise that companies create these headlines from self-serving surveys, but really – FOUR MILLION pax missing flights each year in the UK because they’re shopping is just spin spun too much!

    If, on the other hand, the figures are (by some wild stretch of creative marketing imagination)correct then you are, indeed, an Australian and I may very well be English…