Customers

Keflavík International Airport

Recent changes in the company have brought development at Keflavík Airport closer to the needs of customers and services closer to daily operations. Keflavík Airport faces fierce competition from airports outside Iceland. Understanding customers’ needs and providing outstanding service and experiences is essential to ensure the competitiveness and uniqueness of Keflavík Airport.

In recent years, the airport has undergone extensive construction work, aimed at improving service, quality and safety. For instance, the airport has been expanded to cover approx. 22,000 m2 over the past five years. A great deal of time and money has also been spent on improving internal capacity and quality at the airport, e.g. improvements to security screening to cut waiting times and extra automatic gates and equipment to ease passengers’ journeys through the airport.

We focus on high-quality passenger and customer service throughout their entire journey through the terminal and airport. We run regular courses for Isavia employees, operators and partners on how best to meet the needs of passengers using the airport.

We are working on improving the passenger experience as they undergo the security measures required at airports today. Technical solutions have been introduced to make the journey through the terminal as efficient and fast as possible without inconveniencing passengers excessively. The focus has been on automation and general efficiency. In this connection, we have added a good number of automatic check-in points, automatic bag drops, automatic entry points and baggage equipment at weapons search, automatic boarding gates, as well as automatic border points for passengers travelling outside of the Schengen area.

During the year, construction was completed on Apron Boarding Stations (ABS) at Keflavik Airport. With them, passengers who are brought to remote stands will walk directly from the bus into the ABS and then on board the plane. With this project service level for passengers will increase.

Business partners at Keflavík Airport

One of the key aspects of good customer service at Keflavík Airport is the excellent business partners who sell their services and products to passengers, e.g. shops, restaurants, bus companies and car rentals. Isavia annually gives a services award to the retail and restaurant entities that have achieved the best performance in services and sales to passengers.

In 2020, the needs of these business partners were very different to those of previous years. Their priority was to keep their business operations as healthy as possible, while providing passengers with the best possible service at a time of great uncertainty as regards external conditions. Isavia afforded its partners a great deal of flexibility, and they did their very best to keep as high a level of service as possible, in order to provide passengers with the services they need and generate revenue and keep their staff employed.

Isavia launched and held regular information meetings with all business partners throughout 2020. The aim of these meetings was to help business partners adjust their service levels and be ready for recovery, as well as connect them with management to obtain the information they needed. At these meetings, business partners received regular updates from Isavia Emergency and Crisis Coordination on the effect of Covid-19 on the airport, information on expected air traffic in the short and long term and insights into how customer expectations can be expected to change after Covid-19. A dedicated information webpage has been set up where Isavia’s business partners at Keflavík Airport can find the latest flight schedules, training material and useful operational information. A dedicated website has also been set up for each individual business partner, containing all contractual information and correspondence with the parties.

Keflavík Airport Service award

Handling agents at Keflavík Airport

Regular meetings are held to communicate with handling agents, the police and customs authorities and look at how services and operations can be improved.

With the establishment of the Hub Control Centre (HCC), we aim to further enhance this co-operation. The purpose of the HCC is to achieve increased efficiency, obtain a better general overview, shorten the decision-making process and improve the flow of information, making operations more efficient for both Isavia and users of Keflavík Airport. The HCC supports the vision of Keflavík Airport as a centre for aviation in the North Atlantic.

The weather can seriously affect operations at Keflavík Airport over the winter months, and a great deal of effort has been put into co-ordinating the responses of various airport users to minimise any disruption. Special weather action meetings are held as required to pass on information and draw up action plans in light of the current forecast. In the context of Covid-19, regular meetings have been held with aviation stakeholders and business partners at Keflavík Airport to pass on information and co-ordinate the action necessary to meet the requirements laid down at the airport. 

ASQ service surveys

Standardised service surveys have been carried out at Keflavík Airport for the past fifteen years. An international survey created by the Airports Council International (ACI) which measures passenger satisfaction at more than 350 airports worldwide and provides good comparison is used. Data on 34 service aspects at the airport are collected throughout the year. The results are published on a quarterly basis, allowing a swift response if anything is found that needs remedial action. Passenger satisfaction is measured on a scale of 0–5. Keflavík International Airport has always been high on the European list, which contains over 100 airports throughout the continent. There have been, however, isolated periods when overall satisfaction has fallen. This can usually be traced back to disruptions due to renovations of the terminal.

An award in the ACI service survey is one of the greatest accolades available to global airport operators and is given for exceptional service provision and customer experience. Keflavík Airport received recognition from ACI for the third year in a row for being among the best airports of its size category (5–15 million passengers annually) as regards service quality in 2020.

In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, a number of questions regarding hygiene and safety measures at the airport were added to the service survey in Q4 2020. These questions look at passengers’ experiences of hygiene and infection prevention measures at airports. Keflavík Airport was among fifteen other European airports than won awards for hygiene measures last year.

Although passenger numbers at Keflavík Airport have fallen sharply since the pandemic struck, the airport has continued to listen to the needs of its passengers and adjust to the new reality. Communication with passengers is no less important during a pandemic, and we were therefore very happy when Keflavík Airport received Voice of the Customer Recognition from ACI.

Airlines

We Icelanders rely on good air transport in our relations with the rest of the world. Keflavík International Airport therefore has the important role of attracting various airlines – flying to various destinations – to Iceland. We systematically work on business development of new routes and airlines to and from Keflavík Airport. Isavia also works together with existing and new customers to increase air traffic at Keflavík Airport, offering greater frequency and route capacity.

Communication with airlines using Isavia airports takes place during regular user committee meetings to which all users are invited. Airport user committees operate in accordance with the provisions of the Aviation Act and regulations. These committees consist of representatives from all airlines that use the airport regularly and their agents. The meetings are an opportunity for users to discuss their views before making important decisions on operations, quality of service, fee collection, new construction, tower services or other issues that have an impact on their important interests.

In addition to regular user committee meetings, there is regular communication with airlines who already fly to Keflavík Airport and new airlines that the airport considers could be attracted to Iceland. In a normal year, such communication happens at conferences bringing together airlines and airports.

Customers of the Duty Free Store

The Duty Free Store operates four outlets in the Leifur Eiríksson Air Terminal – two for departing passengers, one for passengers travelling to non-Schengen countries and one for arriving passengers. One area of focus is providing professional and excellent service, taking account of the needs and expectations of the various groups of customers. Another priority is stocking a diverse range of high-quality Icelandic and foreign goods, focusing on traditional duty-free goods. Regular service surveys are carried out to assess quality of service.

All passengers using Keflavík Airport are potential customers of the Duty Free Store and it is very important to reach out to them with a diverse range of high-quality products, well-organised shops and professional, impartial and agile service. The values of the Duty Free Store are: service, value and experience.

Users of the flight navigation services

Consultation meetings are held once a year with the users of the flight navigation services as regards operations and investments. Consultation meetings with users of other aspects of flight navigation services also take place under the auspices of the ICAO Planning Group (NAT-SPG) for the North Atlantic. Regular meetings are held with users, and there is communication with individual users or representatives of user groups if considered necessary. Isavia’s partner, the Icelandic Meteorological Office, has a role to play in such user consultation as regards weather information and is the monitoring body as regards volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters.