How Airlines Make Travel Updates Easier for Passengers to Use

1. I have a simple criterion to judge the airlines that get this right: send less, not prettier. In general, I trust the airlines that confirm my booking, remind me to check-in 24 hours before departure, inform me about the gate and boarding time and then nothing. However, most airlines are mixing promos for upgrades of seats, duty-free offers and access to lounges with messages that contain important operational updates. As those messages are mostly rubbish I stop reading after a while and the one message that really matters gets lost in the bulk of messages. So every update should answer three simple questions in the first line of text: What has changed? What is the new time? What do I need to do?

2. Push alerts for gate changes should include the reason for the change and estimated walking time. On my connection in Singapore I received a push notification advising that my gate had changed from C22 to C9 due to an aircraft change and that it would take approximately 15 minutes to reach. This was significantly better than the situation on my last flight where a delay was announced four times in 15 minute increments. Drip feeding of information is worse than announcing bad news once. Just announce your worst case estimate and then improve it as necessary. I can handle a two hour delay but four updates of 20 minutes each would have caused me a lot of problems as I would have had to act on each update thinking that the previous had been a false alarm.

A Bit Less Ruckus, A Whole Lot More Clarity

In my experience, after operating Stingray Villa in Cozumel, travelers don't need dozens of messages to stay informed; they're best served by the right message at the right moment.

Consider traveling in your 40s or 50s. Beyond booking travel arrangements (flights/hotel), possibly planning an extended stay, and spending months anticipating a scuba dive trip, the last thing you likely want is an onslaught of notifications about which messages need your attention.

Airline operators can help passengers by keeping routine updates concise, clear, and relevant. According to the International Air Transport Association, messages about flight delays, gate changes, cancellations, and baggage claims are important operational messages. Travelers should be able to tell at a glance whether something has changed and, if so, whether they need to take action.

An easy way to implement this concept is to put the call to action at the beginning of a notification. For example, instead of placing a gate change in the middle of a lengthy email, tell passengers the new gate number, the boarding start time, and where to report. Only provide additional detail when it assists the passenger in making a decision.

This same philosophy applies with our guests at Stingray Villa. When a guest arrives at Stingray Villa, I want them to know what to expect, how to find me, and what to do next. Guests should not have to sift through a multitude of messages to find a single piece of valuable information.

Effective communication is not about sending multiple messages. Rather, effective communication helps the traveler feel prepared so they can spend fewer hours on logistics and enjoy greater anticipation for their trip.

Airlines utilize progressive disclosure in their communication approach. This means informing the passenger only when they need relevant information and not bombarding them with too much info while booking. By using the steps of the passenger journey to plan their communication, airlines ensure that customers are kept informed without upsetting their inboxes or notification screens. In my experience with various international service operations, most often, anxiety in the traveler is not caused by the number of notifications they receive but by the inconsistency across channels. For example, if a mobile app shows a gate change before this information reaches the gate agent's terminal, the passenger will be worried about which source to trust. To minimize any doubts and confusion, the airlines use omnichannel communication systems, where all communication channels get updated at the same time. This means that the information in the messages comes from the same source and the passengers can be sure of its accuracy. Changes have taken place in the airline sectors too as they replaced the practice of sending out lots of messages regarding check-in, boarding, and gates information with notifications through a dynamic travel card. This conveyer of information stays at the top of the application and retrieves fresh data about whereabouts of the passenger and updates his or her travel card in real time. Instead of sending several alerts at sporadic times, the airlines create the constant notifications instead. The goal is to provide the customer with ongoing updates.

I don't run an airline, so this is an outsider's opinion. My job is telling people exactly what's about to happen at their door, and the same rules seem to apply. The one change I'd push is a fixed first line on every update that says whether anything is different since the last message. "No changes, gate still B12, boarding 4:40." Or "Changed: gate is now B14." A traveler reads that in two seconds. A no-change message stops feeling like clutter because the answer sits in the opening words.

Keep the layout identical across messages. Gate and time first, then what to do next. Once the layout never moves, people stop reading the whole thing and glance at the spot where the answer always lives. That's what lets them feel informed without feeling buried.

Frequency matters just as much. I'd send updates at the moments a passenger acts on, like leaving for the airport and boarding, and hold everything else until something changes. A message with no action behind it trains people to swipe it away, and then the one that matters gets swiped too.

I'd also keep the wording plain. "Your flight leaves 25 minutes later" beats a status code.

I run a UK company booking long-haul flights to Australia, South-East Asia and India, so I see airline updates from the passenger's side. The change that helps most is one channel and one person. Each of our customers has a real person on WhatsApp from quote to return, so they have one place to ask "what does this mean for me?" instead of piecing together several alerts.

This matters most on one-stop routes. London to Australia and Asia usually means a Gulf carrier such as Etihad or Qatar Airways, with one stop in Abu Dhabi or Doha, so a change on one leg can affect the whole trip.

My advice to airlines: send fewer, fuller updates. Say what changed, what it means for the whole journey, and whether the passenger needs to do anything. Then give them a human to reply to.

A good update answers one question and stops. Most airline messages try to cover the delay, the compensation policy, the app download and the loyalty programme in the same breath.

From what I've seen, people read the first thing and assume the rest is marketing. So the refund link at the bottom goes unclicked, and your call centre takes the call anyway.

Here's another thing I've noticed.

Three short messages someone actually reads beat one long one they skim, so splitting things up lightens the load rather than adding to it.

We ran into this with our own service notices. Our old template bundled three updates into one email because sending fewer emails seemed considerate.

Splitting them out felt wasteful at first. But each one now has a subject line that names its single question, and people act on them separately instead of skimming all three.

The test I use is simple. Write the question the message answers in six words. Two questions means two messages.

We also killed the promotional footer on anything operational. A flight update with a seat sale underneath it teaches people the whole channel is advertising.

Customers now reach the airport knowing which things need their attention and which don't.