New AI-driven research has revealed that emotional disconnects in the airport passenger journey could be putting up to US$695 million in annual revenue at risk across the United States’ busiest airports.
The study , conducted by emotion analytics company Adoreboard , analysed over 20,000passenger reviews using advanced AI models to quantify how trust, frustration and other emotional responses influence commercial performance.
The analysis, which examined airports including Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago O’Hare, found that declines in trust–particularly at check-in and security–are linked to lower passenger spending.
“We are seeing that trust, a critical component in passenger confidence, decreases by 6 percent at check-in and security due to process, technology and people challenges,” said Chris Johnston, Chief Executive at Adoreboard. “This doesn’t bode well for the overall customer journey when we know that for every 10 extra minutes spent in security reduces retail spending by 30 percent. The findings provide a wake-up call for airports to re-imagine a customer journey that inspires joy not anger.”
In an interview with the Airports AI Alliance , he added that airport leaders must go beyond traditional feedback mechanisms to generate actionable insight from passenger data.
“The capability is very much around being able to listen to passengers, distil what’s important and act on prioritised insight linked to business impact,” he said. “The majority of airports already ‘listen’–they have some form of survey, be it to access Wi-Fi or touchpoint survey. The challenge is to use perspective insights to turn the listening data into actionable insight.”
The process provides a ranked overview of the most problematic areas in the passenger journey. By first establishing a baseline of the current experience, airports can then apply predictive modelling to estimate the potential uplift in performance metrics–such as Net Promoter Score (NPS)–if specific improvements are made. This, in turn, supports the development of a future-state vision and helps to build a credible business case for change.
“If you’re only listening but not distilling insight and taking action, airports are sleepwalking into strong economic headwinds,” Johnston added. “Discerning passengers will literally fly elsewhere.”
The report’s AI methodology differs from standard sentiment analysis by capturing a broader emotional spectrum and linking specific feelings–such as anxiety, trust, or anger–to individual operational themes.
“Sentiment analysis is redundant, so focusing on trust for example as a key metric for risk is a good start,” he said. “Secondly, correlating emotional experience metrics to key operational metrics such as overall satisfaction means you have an integrated approach to metrics. And ultimately you want to use the emotional experience metrics to prioritise decisions so actions and resources are effectively applied.”
Adoreboard’s model calculates revenue at risk by combining emotional intensity scores with average passenger spend and traffic volumes across the five airports studied. Navigation difficulties, parking issues, and interactions with staff were among the areas most closely associated with heightened negative emotions.
Johnston added that AI can support more responsive and targeted interventions, enable real-time insight generation and prioritisation, and allows continuous monitoring, so airport leaders can assess whether changes are genuinely improving the emotional experience.
The study recommends that airports establish a clear baseline of their current emotional performance in order to guide strategic improvements and secure long-term commercial returns.
Image: Anke Van Wyk | Dreamstime.com
