Forming an Opportunity Belief - 4A

Assignment 4A – Forming an Opportunity Belief 

Belief and Opportunity: When completing my bug list, I realized there is still an unmet need with delays on planes and connecting flights. The main people affected by this unmet need are passengers on planes that book connecting flights. The need is not new, this delay has been happening since the beginning of mainstream and commercial air travel. On some rare occasions, flight attendants will be aware of delays, and allow connecting flight passengers priority to exit off the plane. I believe their computer systems should recognize and pinpoint all passengers with booked connecting flights, sending that information to planes and their flight attendants. With this software system information, flight attendants can confirm which passengers are in a hurry and which passengers need priority exiting off the plane. I am 60% sure that this opportunity exists, and that someone has not solved this problem already.

The prototypical customer is someone who travels frequently, age range from 20-65, male or female.

Iteration No. 1: Female, 52

A    Have you ever travelled on a plane and booked a connecting flight?

C    Yes I have. I travel frequently for business.

A    Was the flight delayed in any way?

C    Yes, usually the international flights get delayed. (Never fly out of EWR)

A    Did this delay cause you to miss your connecting flight?

C    Yes it has.

A    If you have experienced this issue, how often does this problem occur?

C    This has occurred several times, possibly more than five.

A    If you have experienced this issue, when was the first time?

C    The first time was once when I had a local connection that was only 1 hour for an international flight.

A    What do you think airlines are doing to prevent these delays and missed connections?

C    Airlines are building bigger terminals for more planes to fly in and out of. Most delays are caused by traffic on the runway. Airlines don’t have much control over that.

A   Are you happy with this solution?

C   No, I don’t feel like there is a solution just yet.

Iteration No. 2: Female, 26

A    Have you ever travelled on a plane and booked a connecting flight?

C   Yes I have travelled on a plane a couple times. They were short flights so they weren’t connecting.

A    Was the flight delayed in any way?

C   Yes one of the flights were delayed.

A    Did this delay cause you to miss your connecting flight?

C   No, since I didn’t book a connecting flight I didn’t miss it. But I was late to an event one time because of my delay.

A   If you have experienced this issue, how often does this problem occur?

C   I haven’t experienced this issue.

A    If you have experienced this issue, when was the first time?

C   Well first time I experienced the delay was when I was travelling for a wedding out of town, I didn’t have a connecting flight but the delay did inconvenience myself and others.

A    What do you think airlines are doing to prevent these delays and missed connections?

C   The last time I flew with JetBlue, I noticed that the airline gave enough boarding time and boarded passengers starting from the back of the plane to the front. Instead of priority. This allowed for less traffic in the front of the plane and was ultimately faster letting us leave on time.

A   Are you happy with this solution?

C   Yeah I think that’s a good start for airlines. Hopefully there will be less delays in the future.

Iteration No. 3: Male, 22

A    Have you ever travelled on a plane and booked a connecting flight?

C   Yeah I travel back home a lot to visit my family, since I live away for school. My family lives in a small town, so we usually have to book a connecting flight to get to the local airport.

A    Was the flight delayed in any way?

C   Yeah, since the airport is so small there are always delays.

A    Did this delay cause you to miss your connecting flight?

C   Yeah, I once missed my flight because of a delay on my first plane.

A   If you have experienced this issue, how often does this problem occur?

C   It only happened to me that one time.

A    If you have experienced this issue, when was the first time?

C   The first time it happened was last year when I was leaving home going back to school after a long weekend. My first flight was delayed in the runway for 2 hours before we left. My connection was only an hour long so I had to wait for another flight to get back. I ended up sleeping at the airport for a couple hours which sucked.

A    What do you think airlines are doing to prevent these delays and missed connections?

C   Honestly, I don’t think airlines are doing much to prevent delays. People aren’t going to stop flying because of a delay.

A   Are you happy with this solution?

C   No, hopefully they take it more seriously in the future.

REFLECTION: After speaking with these 3 customers, I realized that delays are always going to be a problem, but not many people experience issues with their connecting flights. Of course, there are so many other people that I didn’t speak with that travel far more often.

SUMMARY: Even if the airlines implemented a system to notify their staff of any customers or passengers with connecting flights, if there is a delay that is longer than the actual connection, there is nothing the staff can do. Long international flights usually are connecting and sometimes they don’t give a long enough connection time, especially if the gate is on the other side of the terminal. After doing this, my belief of this opportunity is the same even though many of my commenters didn’t experience this issue first hand. I can’t prove that the opportunity is more accurate than when I started. Even though the feedback didn’t prove my opportunity, I believe this is still an issue, I stand firm with it because this improvement won’t take any more time and will prevent money loss from airlines that have to rebook flights for passengers.