How Delta Airlines Used Qualitative Research to Understand Passenger Stress

One of the world's largest airlines had quantitative data showing that passengers were often reporting low satisfaction on fights because of stress, but the airline didn't know at exactly which points along the journey passengers felt stress and how it affected them physiologically when flying. To find out, so that the airline could make strategic interventions to make passengers more comfortable, they hired InterQ Research.

InterQ designed a qualitative study with biometrics. Passengers used a mobile ethnography app to check in during their flying journey and report where they were feeling stress, and which parts of the journey felt easy. To corroborate their verbal feedback, passengers wore Fitbits to track their heartrates. Prior to the flight day, they shared baseline results of their heartrates so that InterQ could track stress spikes when they flew.

InterQ's research gave the airline surprising insights into passenger stress points that were un-anticipated. As a result, the airline is developing systematic changes to help passengers feel more at ease during their whole flying journey.