Date: 23rd November 2010

Class: tr10sem04

Tutor: Claus Westh

Pilot project

Group members:

Cecilie Alexandersen

Emanuel-Mihai Kakuja

Christina Kyhl Spangenberg

Alise Vilumsone

Laimonas Remeika

Michael Hougaard
 Table of contents:

Introduction:.........................................................................................................................3
Scope....................................................................................................................................7
Method.................................................................................................................................8
Sampling Method...............................................................................................................13

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How to improve self-services in Copenhagen airport?

Introduction:

Copenhagen airport is the leader in check-in options. Figures from the international
industry organization IATA,1 shows that Copenhagen airport is the airport in the world,
which have the largest numbers of airlines offering their passengers to check-in using the
self-service kiosks.2

Since 2006 the development within self-service in Copenhagen airport has been growing
fast, and the new technology is received in many different ways by the passengers. You
can check-in using the self-service kiosks, online where you can also print your boarding
pass and via mobile phone. In April 2009, 58% of the passengers in Copenhagen airport
chose to use self check-in. that is 18% above the industry average.3 The numbers are
growing fast, and expand every year. In this project we have chosen to focus on Terminal
3, which is the terminal were self-services are most distributed. After 15th of November it
is possible for every airline company to provide self-service check-in for customers.4
Hopefully in 2011 customers will experience that they can do more than just check-in.
The invention of a new self-service machine will make it possible for passengers to
check.in and drop of their luggage at the same machine. This will cause both positive and
negative reactions, for example less queuing which will lead to a more comfortable travel
but the customers will also lose the face to face contact.

Copenhagen airport is the largest workplace in Denmark5 and an exciting environment to

be a part of. Every month more than 1.5 million passengers travel through Copenhagen
airport6. Every year the number of passenger increase and that is why they constantly
need to improve the service. We thought it would be very interesting to see how the

1
IATA: The International Air Transport Association
2
http://www.cph.dk/CPH/Templates/NormalColumn.aspx?
NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%7B9ABDB602-2F99-4B43-87E8-
7BB8DBBED6B1%7D&NRORIGINALURL=%2FCPH%2FUK%2FB2B%2FAirlines%2FNews
%2FRoute+News
%2F2009%2FSelf+service+checkin.htm&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest – 16th of
November 2010
3
http://www.cph.dk/CPH/Templates/NormalColumn.aspx?
NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%7B9ABDB602-2F99-4B43-87E8-
7BB8DBBED6B1%7D&NRORIGINALURL=%2FCPH%2FUK%2FB2B%2FAirlines%2FNews
%2FRoute+News
%2F2009%2FSelf+service+checkin.htm&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest – 16th of
November 2010
4
https://secure.egruppe.net/index.php?link=6 – (Christina’s private work information)
5
http://sputnik.tv2.dk/series/cph---luthavnen/ - 16th of November 2010
6
http://www.cph.dk/CPH/DK/PRESSE/Nyheder/2010/trafiktal+september.htm – 16th of
November 2010
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service is in the airport and if the passengers are willing to use the self-service the airport
provides.

Copenhagen airport have used a huge amount of resources to be the leading airport in
self-service. It is very important for Copenhagen airport to satisfy their passengers and
their goal is to be in top 3 in Europe by 2010.

“We seek to maintain our reputation as a quality airport. We want to improve

satisfaction through a focused service delivery satisfying the main needs of our
passengers”7

Numbers show that to keep up the standard that Copenhagen airport is known for, they
must achieve a minimum of 908 percent of passengers using self-check-in. This counts
for mobile phone, Internet, CUSS check-in or other.9 We would like to examine through
research and questionnaires which segment of passenger are not using the self-service
kiosks and why? We would like to find a solution so Copenhagen airport can live up to
the fullest and fulfil passenger’s satisfaction in the future. Therefore our research
question is:

“How to improve self-service in Copenhagen airport?”

In order to examine our research question, we will use theories and models (which is our
secondary data). We will also do a questionnaire which we will hand out to the
passengers in the airport and use the results as our primary data. In addition to that, we
will time the passengers in Copenhagen airport. We would like to see if there is any
difference in time spent on checking in, when you use the self service kiosks or use the
manual check in.

Hypotheses:
According to statistics year 2006, when they introduced the self service check-in kiosks,
there has been a major increase in people using this service. In order to investigate and
compare the usage between regular check-in and the self-service check-in we will do the
field research for collecting qualitative and quantitative data. Approaching time
measuring observations for comparing the queuing time. Also analysing the user-
friendliness of the check-in kiosks and the user segment.

7
http://www.cph.dk/CPH/UK/ABOUT+CPH/Strategy+and+Facts/Goals.htm
8
http://www.cph.dk/NR/rdonlyres/545454AA-502E-46D4-85A2-
8303356DA314/0/CPHGoTermsofUseSeptember2010.pdf - 16th of November 2010
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CUSS: Common-Use-Self-Service.
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WE WILL BASE OUR PROJECT ANALYSIS TO THESE THEORY MODELS:

1. GAP MODEL

We will explore closer:

GAP 2 - “lack of management commitment to service quality or a perception of the
unfeasibility of meeting customers’ expectations”10
Our perception is that self service kiosks work technically very good and there aren’t
big problems in this field. It is also easy understandable and comprehensible.
GAP 3 - “can arise from a number of reasons, including lack of teamwork, poor
employee selection, inadequate training and inappropriate job design”1
This gap exist if the passenger try to use the kiosk, but gave up, because of different
reasons, for example - it is complicated, he/she didn’t understand something, it takes too
long time and there is nobody (from airport staff) who is able to deal with the problem
and try to solve it.

2. SERVICESCAPES

Servicescape or physical environment is very important think to deal with.

“In self-service operations servicescapes plays a central role in guiding customer
behavior through the use of signage and intuitive design of interfaces.” 11
Are there some directions in the Copenhagen airport which shows where to find self-
service kiosks and how to deal with them or maybe there are some interfaces in the
company’s website, which actuate to use self-service instead or regular check-in.
It is very significant to design successful and good-looking self-service kiosk, which
encourage passengers to try and after that – use this service repeatedly. We plan to
analyze design, flexibility, layout etc. of self-service kiosks.
We will try to make the servicescape framework as well.

3. QUEUING

It is necessary to organize successful and effective queuing system Copenhagen

airport, because it saves a lot of time for passengers. Instead of waiting in the line they
can go shopping or take a meal in restaurant while they are waiting for the flight.
We will:
• analyze queuing system in Copenhagen airport ;

• Observe passengers behavior and conduct while they are waiting in queue;

10
James A. Fitzsimmons, Mona J. Fitzsimmons „Service Management”, Seventh
edition, McGraw Hill (p.119)
11
James A. Fitzsimmons, Mona J. Fitzsimmons „Service Management”, Seventh
edition, McGraw Hill (p.154)
5
• Observe how fast (average) employee serve one client in the line

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 Scope
Although it is generally considered that research questions are done by the lack of
information, our group did have such a problem.
At the start we thought about the Kastrup airport more precisely about how to
improve the passenger handling at the airport , because it offer wide range of information
from the personal, passengers ( which represent primary sources ) to literature (because
there are a lot of studies on the subject ) , statistics from the airport and it website (which
represent secondary information) .
After establishing the subject (Kastrup airport) and the problem area (which is
efficiency in the airport), we found more information and so funnel to the one which
became our research problem: how to improve self-service in the Kastrup airport.
The funnelling took place because of gathering the in information and realizing
that the feasibility of the initial idea was very low given the allocated time and the
multitude of variables. Also the information gathering process helped define the final
questions because on the airports website we clearly saw a problem the number of people
using self-service was far lower than the airport was designed.
The application usage of this project is that it allows the airport to increase the
number of passengers it handles resulting in a higher profit and a much pleasant
experience for the passenger, beside this it is also beneficial in for the airline companies
that are using the airport because passengers will not miss there flights thus the company
will not have complains.

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 Method
The aim of any questionnaire is to do as much exact
representative of the population as possible. However, the sampling of
individual units of the population is not done in a random manner
because the final selection of people to be included in the study is in
the hands of the interviewer.
The interviewer is able to make judgments about the people when
deciding whether or not to approach a person.

Method of collecting secondary information

At the beginning of the project everyone was searching for information about the
research problem to create as much of an exact picture as possible of the research
possibilities and to know what fields maybe implicated in the research.

After the interviews and organizing the date, in group meetings it will be decided
who will search for which hypothesis. Hypothesis being a result of interpreting the date
gather trough interviews and questionnaires.

Method of collecting primary date

When we conducted the interview each one had to interview a specific category
of the research population, for example one will only ask the middle age women while
another will only ask the middle age men, another the young men etc. thus avoiding the
possibility of obtaining more information from some parts of the researched population
then other parts (for example asking more men then women).

A structured interview can be made in order to collect both quantifiable and qualitative
data. The goal of a structured interview is to standardize the interviewing of respondents
so that differences between them will be minimized. Most structured interviews contain
mainly closed-ended or fixed choice questions, just like self-completion

Responses Non-Responses Total

These types of questions facilitate the data processing. On the other hand they might be
too guiding in terms of possible answers. The self-completion questionnaires are absent
of interviewer effects and they are also quicker and cheaper to administer. By
having respondents fill out the questionnaire themselves the response time usually
decreased as respondents could complete the questionnaire at their own speed. There are
some disadvantages to self-completion questionnaires. For example, the researcher
cannot probe or collect additional data, cannot explain to respondents when they don’t
understand and there is greater risk of missing data as respondents might skip questions
they don’t understand. In this study, the researcher encouraged respondents to ask if they
were in doubt with something to reduce the risk of missing data and ensure that
respondents understood the questions correctly.
Another source of primary information is from direct interview with the staff from

8
the airport office and also by observation (measuring the time it takes for people to
check-in by the conventional method and by using the kiosk.)

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 Method scheme:
Research
question
?

SECONDARY PRIMARY
INFORMATION INFORMATION

Scholar books Interview

Internet about airport from staff and
service passengers

Services that can Filtering out the

indicate possible people who meet
problems the requirements.

Determine the
construction
Questionnaire

Ask the same

amount of people
in ratio age-wise
and gender-wise

STATISTICS

HYPOTHESIS

Dividing possible
hypothesis to each
group member to
research.

CONCLUSION

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 Questionnaire:

1.Gender: Male Female 

2. Age: <18 18-23 24-29 30-35 36-41 42-47 48-53 54-60 60 -65 65 <
         

3. Which check-in method do you prefer? Check-in kiosks  Regular check-in 

4. If using regular check-in how long did you wait in line?

0-5 minutes  6-14 minutes  15 minutes < 

5. If using self-service did you wait to get a check-in kiosk?

Yes  No 

6. How would you rate using the self-service kiosks?

(Bad) 1  2 3 4 5  (Good)

7. How long did it take to get through baggage drop?

0-5 minutes  6-10 minutes  11-15 minutes  16-20 minutes  20 minutes < 

8. What is your opinion about self check-in?

It takes too much time 

It is too complicated 

I would prefer someone to help me 

It is too crowded 

I think it is fast and it saves my time 

I am afraid of doing it wrong 

9. What is the purpose of your travel?

Business  Pleasure 

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 Purpose of the questions in the survey:

Gender:

To determine if there is a difference in the use of self-service gender-wise.

Age:

To investigate the specific age groups where service gap exists.

Which check-in method do you prefer?:

Considering servicescapes and service gap models we can see what people prefer.

If using regular check-in how long did you wait in line?

According to queuing model we can investigate if it saves travellers’’ time effectively

and is beneficial.

If using self-service did you wait to get a check-in kiosk?

To have an understanding of how many people have used the checking in kiosks in
practice and investigate if there is a service gap.

How would you rate them?:

To determine if there is some room for improvement.

How long did it take to get through baggage drop?

Based on queuing and servicescapes models to understand if there is something that can
be changed.

What is your opinion about self check-in?

In order to determine what is the specific service gap for customers not using the
checking in kiosks.

What is the purpose of your travel?:

To determine if there is a same ratio of travellers in both groups using the self-service.

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 Execution of Research

Here we are going to write what we found out by observation

Sampling Method

Because Copenhagen Airport has more than 20 million passengers a year

this study does not have the time and resources to do a longitudinal
survey of passengers.

Target Population
This study will undertake to sample the population of international
passengers departing from Copenhagen Airport in November.
.
All passengers departing from the airport in those days constitute
the population. The researcher does not have access to a list of all units in
the population so it is not possible to make a sampling frame. Access to
passengers on these days is provided by the authorities at the airports.

Sampling Criteria
To be included in the sampling frame passengers need to be at least 16
years of age and have
used the self-service system at the airport. The best sampling method 12 is
probability sampling because it allows the researcher to administer tests
of statistical significance that allow inferences to be made about the
population from which the sample was selected.
In this study, the nature of some questions requires the
respondents to have experienced the self-services provided by the airport.

Sampling Process
As mentioned above, respondents must have experienced self-
services in the international terminal area before being approached for
inclusion in the study. When deciding what weekday and time of day was
best for this study, both convenience for the researcher personally and
maximum amount of passenger traffic flows were taken into
consideration.

12
http://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/22450
13
 Professionals from the airport were conferred with in determining
which days and time of day had good amount of traffic flow.

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