Tech & Biz

Wi-Fi the Most Important Airport Amenity for Frequent Flyers

by Jordan Yerman | May 25, 2009 at 11:22 am

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A study conducted by American Airlines and Hewlett Packard found that frequent flyers consider airport Wi-Fi to be the most important airport amenity... even more important than food.

The study surveyed 1,500 travelers who took more than 20 flights per year. Most of the findings seem pretty intuitive, but an interesting tidbit was that more than 90% of frequent flyers travel with both laptop and mobile phone. If these devices are so ubiquitous, why do airport security types seem so confused when presented with my iBook?

More than 47 percent of business travelers surveyed indicated Wi-Fi was the most important airport amenity, outscoring basic travels needs such as food by nearly 30 percentage points.

Methodology

The survey was conducted via e-mail by American Airlines Customer Research to their loyal customer database between Feb. 19 - 26, 2009. The statistics are based on 1,582 respondents who have taken more than 20 trips domestically or internationally during the past 12 months.

Note that the study addresses amenities, and not necessities such as toilets, escalators and airport bars.