Marie Camara

Business Problem

The airline was facing a systemic crisis in passenger retention and satisfaction, with 56.6% of the customer base reporting as neutral or dissatisfied (only 43.4% reporting a positive experience). This structural deficiency exposed the airline to critical churn risk, particularly on highly competitive routes.

The core operational friction points identified included:

• The Leisure Travel Blind Spot: A lower satisfaction rate of only 10.1% among personal/leisure travelers.
• Ineffective Uniform Service Models: Operating practices treated corporate and personal travelers identically, completely missing the unique priorities of each segment.
• Revenue Risk in Short-Haul Operations: Dissatisfaction was heavily concentrated in the short-haul economy sector (capturing 58% of all passengers), where budget alternatives are highly active.

Methodology & Tools Used

The analysis was conducted using a comprehensive database of 129,880 passengers to reduce the margin of error and identify highly reliable patterns.

• Data Source: Sourced from a public domain Kaggle dataset mapping comprehensive passenger demographics, flight distances, and granular 5-point evaluation metrics.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2022: Utilized for data cleaning, advanced Common Table Expression (CTE) segment definitions, and executing cross-tab query analysis.
• Power BI Desktop: Deployed to construct an enterprise-grade interactive dashboard featuring executive summaries, customer profile drill-downs, distance matrices, and satisfaction-driver key influencer charts.

Key Deliverables

Key Insights

Customer satisfaction varies among different traveller groups. Business Class flyers report a high satisfaction rate of 69.4%, while corporate travellers are at 58.4%. In contrast, first-time flyers have only 24.0% satisfaction, with 99.2% travelling for business and an average age of 30.4.

Satisfaction tends to increase with flight distance, reaching 77.3% for flights over 3,000 miles, mainly among Business Class passengers. Short-haul flights (under 1,000 miles) account for 58% of all flights but have a low satisfaction rate of 33%.

Digital touchpoints significantly influence purchasing decisions, with online boarding (+1.45), in-flight entertainment (+1.07), and Wi-Fi (+0.99) showing the highest satisfaction gaps. Traditional factors like gate location and schedule convenience have less impact.

Strategic Recommendations

• Redesign Leisure Experience Tracks
• Deploy a “First Corporate Trip” Journey
• Overhaul Short-Haul Economy
• Prioritize Software Re-platforming
• Deprioritize Operational Redundancies