The Leading Airport Magazine

On 13 November 2015, Lyon-Saint Exupéry’s Airport Helper Ambassador, a young Chef named Grégory Cuilleron, hosted a flavour discovery workshop and customers were offered postcards to send to friends and relatives to spread kindness everywhere.

Do not know where to pick up a baggage trolley, where to rent a car or where to eat a delicious meal at the airport? Ask your Airport Helper! Created in 2007 by Aéroports de Lyon, the Airport Helper is a new concept of customer service that aims to provide passengers with any information or guidance they need at all steps of their journey throughout the airport. By the end of the year, there will be 11 European airports offering this service. Inês Rebelo reports.

In 2007, the Quality Committee team at Aéroports de Lyon and its major partners came up with an innovative approach to improve the passenger service at the airport: the Airport Helper. Based on the commitment of the whole airport staff across all businesses on the airport site, the Airport Helper is someone that is on hand to make passengers’ journey at the airport more smooth and enjoyable by answering their questions. As such, the Airport Helper represents a new, crucial element in the passenger quality service chain – it shows how airports continuously strive to improve their services for passengers. “The Airport Helper fosters the feeling of belonging to an airport community that is closely cooperating to achieve a common goal: a high-quality passenger service. It involves the whole community of airport professionals and it creates a true airport culture at the core of which are our passengers,” Martine Fillon, Assistant at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport in charge of the animation of the concept Airport Helper, points out.

Antonio Pascale, Quality Manager at Naples Airport, corroborates: “The Airport Helper concept is a great way to involve the airport community in welcoming passengers and carry on our strategy based on considering the passenger as a real guest, welcoming him the same way we do for a loved person coming at our home.”

Following the success enjoyed by Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport, which launched the Airport Helper label, other European airports have also been implementing this concept. There will be 11 European airports with Airport Helpers by the end of the year: Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport, Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris-Orly Airport, Rome Fiumicino Airport, Rome Ciampino Airport, Munich Airport, Milan Malpensa Airport, Milan Linate Airport, Naples Airport, Toulouse Airport and Bologna Airport. Zurich Airport and Prishtina Airport are planning to offer this service next year.

Airport Helpers are easily recognisable, thanks to an identification badge that they wear on their jacket. They are volunteers from all businesses at the airport that are ready to ensure constant care to passengers and help them find their way around the airport services. They are specially trained on the “welcome attitude” as well as on technical and behavioural aspects so as to be able to efficiently respond to any sort of demands, from giving advice on specific destinations or restaurants at the airport to suggesting activities to keep children entertained. “There are now more than 2,000 Airport Helpers wearing the badge and serving customers at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport. Over the past 8 years, we have observed that the trend towards “courtesy of the airport staff” in our passenger satisfaction surveys has increased substantially,” Martine adds.

An emblematic event of the Airport Helper community at European airports is the World Kindness Day, which takes place on 13 November annually. Organised by the Airport Helpers, this day is fully focused on sharing kindness with the goal of celebrating the sense of service and passenger loyalty at the airport.

The idea that the Airport Helper facilitates the creation of a strong passenger-centred community is corroborated by Arnaud Pouilly, Senior Manager at the Customer Quality Department at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport: “The Airport Helper initiative has contributed to creating a community that generates a feeling of belonging to a service-orientated entity. It has reinforced links between different service providers from multiple sectors and their staff members, as well as encouraging improved relations amongst individuals across the board.”

Launched in September 2013 at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, the Airport Helper community has currently over 1,000 members and encompasses 40 partner companies at this French airport. It has improved not only the global customer satisfaction and relations amongst staff within the airport itself, but also the global image of the airport in terms of quality of service. Arnaud goes into detail to explain what the airport is doing to stimulate interest and maintain the dynamics of this initiative: “Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport has put together a comprehensive package for all members that comprises: specific training sessions, onsite visits to terminals and installations with a privileged glimpse behind the scenes, a range of exclusive conferences to promote both personal and professional self-development for members in addition to other tools, namely digital, to help them to be better prepared to respond to and even anticipate customer needs.”

In the case of Paris-Orly Airport, where the Airport Helper programme was launched in 2012, the airport has created an office called “BurO2” dedicated to the Airport Helper community, which now counts 1,140 members and over 40 companies. How does it work? “Airport Helpers meet in this office and have the possibility to relax (massage chair), to learn (language e-courses) or just to discuss with other members of the family. They may also make suggestions for improvement or share the problems they face and we try to find the right answers. This office helps to build bridges for a united family that is proud of working for the airport community and for a better passenger experience,” Agnès Nicolas, Senior Manager at the Customer Quality Department at Paris-Orly Airport, explains.

The Airport Helper has also been a fruitful experience at Rome Airports since 2013. “The feedback received by passengers as well as the airport staff involved in the Airport Helper initiative is very positive,” comments Catherine Ballester, Head of Benchmarking at the Service Quality Department at Aeroporti di Roma. “The Airport Helper community at Fiumicino and Ciampino airports now gathers up to 900 employees. They come not only from Aeroporti di Roma and its subsidiaries, but also from State agencies, the Italian Civil Aviation Authority, airlines, handlers, retailers, bars and restaurants, ground transportation companies, etc. In fact, we wanted to involve all “airport families” in the Airport Helper initiative as the passenger, throughout his experience at the airport, gets in touch with a lot of different categories of staff and skills that all together contribute to the value of his journey,” Catherine points out.

For Airport Helpers, the experience is very rewarding and meaningful inasmuch as they feel that they can reach out to passengers, cater for their needs and make their journey at the airport a pleasant and even memorable moment. “The other day I was on the car parking and was about to take the shuttle. At the stop ‘Europcar car rental’, an old couple entered the bus. The woman asked the driver at which stop she should get off to take a British Airways flight. As an Airport Helper, I immediately offered to help. I got off the bus with them. We looked at the screens together and I could see that their check-in was at gate 19. We took the elevator and I accompanied them to the right check-in desk. They were very grateful and I was delighted to helped them on their way,” Nadia, Airport Helper at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport, recalls.

With so much human interaction taking place at the airport, even simple gestures can make a difference to passengers and visitors. “We were offering kindness day flowers before security and a young lady, who was sad after saying goodbye to her boyfriend that had just left for a long work period abroad, came to us and after we comforted her, she gave us a big hug,” Anna, Airport Helper at SEA Milan Airports, enthuses.

On World Kindness Day this year, participating airports made an offering of flowers, namely red gerberas, which symbolise kindness.

Making passengers feel at home – so they may want to come back any time either as departing, arriving, transferring traveller, or just as a visitor – is a primary goal of the Airport Helper programme at Munich Airport. “The feeling of being assisted is very much valued and highly appreciated by an uninformed or lost passenger. Each of us can contribute to make our passengers feel warmly welcome and comfortable. We want our passengers to carry a first-class reputation of Munich Airport into the world,” Hans-Joachim Klohs, Vice President Central Infrastructure, Traffic and Operational Planning at Munich Airport, stresses.

Munich Airport adopted the Airport Helper concept in 2010 and has developed a specific training programme that intends to enhance the ‘human touch’ amongst its personnel and airport know-how. “We offer 3 Training Modules (3.5 hours each), and usually 2 Trainings for up to 18 participants a month. The Basic Module ‘Hot-Spots’ in the public areas of both Terminals and 2 non-public and security area Modules, one for Terminal 1 and as well one for Terminal 2,” Hans-Joachim Klohs specifies. The airport has already welcomed 1,400 Airport Helpers, over 50% of them joined all of the 3 courses.

SEA Milan Airports officially adopted the Airport Helper concept on 13 November and it firmly believes that it will boost the quality of its passenger services: “Airport Helpers experience in Milan is now in the very beginning, and immediately we see this is a great opportunity to make the airport friendlier to our passengers. The freshly nominated Airport Helpers realised that they are choosing “to be” an Airport Helper not only “to act as” an Airport Helper; they welcome a passenger seeking help, offering him a smiling face and a helping hand. This instantly and positively changes the passenger experience and makes the Airport Helper aware of the great contribution they can give to improve the reputation of the airport they are working at,” Giorgio Medici, Head of Customer Care at SEA Milan Airports, states.

With so many airports now seeking to forge a better relationship with passengers, it’s important to remember how information-intense an airport can be, especially to infrequent flyers. Beyond benchmarking performance, striving for quality and innovating through digital and other platforms, something as old-fashioned as a person smiling and offering to help can make all the difference.

Aéroports de Lyon is very happy that the Airport Helper concept took off. “We would like to thank ACI EUROPE for having invited Lyon and Rome Airports in the framework of the ACI EUROPE Facilitation and Customer Services Committee in the beginning of October to give them the opportunity to share best common practices of the airports that have adopted the Airport Helper and Kindness Day. We are confident we can count on the support of ACI EUROPE to make ‘Airport Helper’ a true label for customer service,” Martine says.

SEA Milan Airports officially adopted the Airport Helper concept on 13 November and it firmly believes that it will boost the quality of its passenger services: “Airport Helpers experience in Milan is now in the very beginning, and immediately we see this is a great opportunity to make the airport friendlier to our passengers,” Giorgio Medici, Head of Customer Care at SEA Milan Airports, states.