When I got the question “How would you improve the airport experience?”, I started by clarifying the scope with the interviewer. We decided to focus only on the pre-boarding phase, which includes arrival, ID verification, baggage drop, and security check, up to reaching the boarding gate. The goal was to reduce the turnaround time per passenger by half during peak festive travel days, specifically at busy domestic airports like Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore.
I broke travelers into three groups: solo travelers, business travelers, and families. Since families travel with heavier luggage, kids, and more documentation, their experience tends to be the most stressful and slowest. So, I focused on improving the experience for families. Their biggest pain points came from unpredictable queues, confusion around ID verification (especially for children), last-minute baggage issues, and managing restless kids during long waits.
To solve for this, I suggested four ideas.
1) First, dedicated family queues with on-behalf verification where parents can validate their children’s IDs using linked Aadhaar numbers for faster movement.
2) Second, smart airport bands that sync with DigiYatra and display real-time status through color indicators—green if you’re on time, orange if you’re tight on schedule, and red if you risk missing your flight.
3) Third, smart trolleys equipped with scanners that detect restricted items and guide passengers on repacking before check-in.
4) And fourth, multi-format authentication where travelers can use OTP, fingerprint, or iris verification to speed up security checks.
If I had to prioritize, I’d start with multi-format authentication and airport bands since both are scalable, require less infrastructure change, and can create a visible difference in reducing stress and wait times. For success metrics, I’d track the average pre-boarding turnaround time, adoption rate of multi-factor verification, usage of smart bands, and number of missed flights.
In short, improving airports isn’t just about speeding up operations; it’s about reducing anxiety and uncertainty for passengers. A smoother, more predictable, and tech-assisted journey would make travelers—especially families—feel that the airport works with them, not against them.