02 August 2024

Interview with Alex de Jesús

Volotea's Chief Experience Officer

After the prestigious recognition of Skytrax World Airline Award as "Best Low-Cost Airline in Europe" obtained for the second consecutive year by Volotea, Avion Tourism Magazine takes stock with Alex de Jesús, Chief Experience Officer of Volotea to discover the exceptional performance and high customer satisfaction of one of Europe's fastest-growing low-cost airlines.

What are the main reasons that led to this success?

At Volotea , we have always been guided by a clear and precise mission: to improve connectivity in Europe, offering direct flights, at competitive prices and with an on-board staff capable of making every passenger feel at home. With this in mind, Volotea wants to change the way of low-cost travel, guaranteeing excellent service and an impeccable experience, while maintaining affordable fares for all. We have adopted a "client-conscious" approach, focused on the needs of customers, trying to always be there to satisfy every need, but in a discreet way. Our continued commitment to this goal has enabled us to triumph for the second year in a row at the Skytrax World Airline Awards, an important recognition that many consider to be the "Oscars of aviation". In particular, there were 3 strengths that allowed us to achieve this goal: the comfort and quality of the interiors of the cabins and our aircraft, the reliability of our customer care and the kindness and professionalism of our cabin crew.

Alex de Jesús, Chief Experience Officer di Volotea Copyright © Volotea

Volotea passengers, in addition to the affordable fares, appreciated the comfort and quality of the interiors of the cabins of your aircraft. Can you explain more about the travel experience you offer on board?

Our fleet consists of 44 Airbus A319/A320s, aircraft capable of combining high-level performance, comfort and greater efficiency from the point of view of sustainability. From the moment they step on board, passengers appreciate the spacious environment. Suffice it to say, for example, that the single-aisle cabin of an Airbus A320 is among the largest available on the market and that the seats, 18 inches wide and reclining, are arranged in rows 5% wider than the average of European airlinesand, allowing our passengers to enjoy the flight with greater comfort and relaxation. But that's not all: the overhead bins offer 40% more volume and can hold 60% more luggage than previous generation Airbuses.

In addition, all our fleets offer an in-flight entertainment service thanks to Wi-Fi connection and the play.volotea.com site, full of films, TV series, newspapers, music and content designed for the little ones. We must not forget "Voices on Board", the announcements that our cabin crew shares with passengers and that give interesting insights into the destination you are going to, such as museums to visit or festivals, and which also provide details on the latest Volotea news, new routes, sponsorship events and offers on the menu available on board.

The kindness and professionalism of the on-board staff is also highly praised by your customers. How do you train your cabin crew?

In every aspect of our business we have always focused on the territory and that is why our cabin crew is made up of people who know the city in which they live and work. To date, we have 21 bases in Europe, 8 of which are in Italy (Venice, Verona, Florence, Palermo, Naples, Bari – inaugurated in June 2024, Olbia and Cagliari) and we have more than 400 collaborators in Italy.

Thanks to this proximity, we are able to make our passengers feel at home on every flight. For Volotea, listening to customers is a key aspect and that is why all cabin crew members are educated and made aware of the centrality of the passenger. Internal training programs are carried out on an annual basis and are structured with an ad hoc focus on customer service, Volotea's product offering (including Megavolotea) and interaction with passengers, to ensure that our staff are always informed and ready to meet passengers' needs in a timely and efficient manner. It is essential for us to take an empathetic approach to our customers.

Passengers also appreciated the reliability of your customer care. So let's talk about customer experience. What initiatives has Volotea taken to improve the passenger experience in recent years?

The many awards obtained in recent years, to which is added the recent Skytrax award, do not represent a point of arrival for us but, on the contrary, constitute a further push to constantly improve and to offer an experience of high standards, flight after flight. In fact, there are many initiatives that, over the years, we have activated in this regard: our customer-centric approach, operational efficiency and strategic planning that have always distinguished us, have allowed us to guarantee a positive, excellent and memorable travel experience. In Italy, the recommendation rate of our Megavolotea passengers (our loyalty program) is very high: from the beginning of 2024 to date, it has reached 92%. In addition, this year we recorded an NPS (Net Promoter Score) of over 40 among all our passengers in Italy, a figure above the industry average.

What are the main challenges that Volotea faces in managing the customer experience and how are you addressing them?

The travel industry, and in particular the air travel industry, has changed profoundly in recent decades due to several factors, such as technological progress and the predominant role of social media, capable of influencing trends. What we can say is that there is no "typical traveler" but, on the contrary, there are many different needs: each passenger has his or her own story and our task as an airline is to do everything possible to ensure that they arrive at their destination on time and without complications. This is precisely the biggest challenge for customer experience management for an airline today: to stay constantly updated and be ready to deal with any need and specific case, quickly and, above all, in times of the year characterized by a high rate of air travel, such as the summer. This is why, in order to optimally cope with every request and constantly improve, technology can be a great ally.

How is technology or artificial intelligence influencing Volotea's customer experience?

As anticipated, technology and Artificial Intelligence can offer valuable support in improving the customer experience. For example, we have integrated a Smart Coaching training program and a chatbot to support all the operators of our call centers. These are two innovative initiatives, available 24/7 designed to improve our multi-channel customer service during seasonal peaks, with the aim of minimizing the learning curve of agents, especially new hires. On the one hand, Smart Coaching guarantees a constantly updated online training plan ; on the other hand, the chatbot offers real-time assistance to our operators, to better manage every request. These projects have recently allowed us to win Contact Center Hub's Platinum Customer Experience Awards.

What feedback do you most frequently receive from your customers and how do you use it to improve your services?

One of our strengths, recurring in the feedback of our customers, is certainly the professionalism and kindness of our crew, from the cabin crew to the captains, and their ability to better manage any possible unforeseen event: however rare, it is in fact essential to be able to count on an on-board staff capable of maintaining calm in any context, to reassure passengers, guaranteeing every form of support. This pushes us to focus more and more on careful and complete training of our staff, through frequent refresher courses. The different feedback we receive from our passengers (NPS, recommendation, satisfaction) is analyzed on a weekly basis by the customer department, shared at all levels of the company and, through a responsive, flexible and agile approach, we intervene to constantly improve our offer.

What are your future goals to continue improving your airline's customer experience?

For the foreseeable future, we are focusing on increasing the use of cutting-edge technologies, with the aim of offering personalized and truly tailor-made travel experiences . We want to update our website and app to facilitate the booking process, continuing to focus on training our staff to offer quality customer service. At the same time, we want to expand our portfolio with new destinations and invest in special projects with authoritative partners in the industry, to further improve the travel experience for our customers. For example, Volotea recently joined the "One Click Away" project, conceived by ENAC in collaboration with IATA, and implemented the volotea.com website with immediately recognizable elements and intuitive routes designed to have access, with extreme ease and with a single click, to a section dedicated to people with disabilities, where you can find the information you need to plan your flight and many other useful content. In this way, we are able to facilitate assistance booking systems on board our Airbus and at the airport, breaking down barriers and making travel more accessible to all passengers, without exception.

Interview by Angela Trivigno

Avion Tourism Magazine

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