We’re committed to continually improving the airport experience by responding to feedback, using new technology and delivering initiatives to enhance the overall airport experience. To support this commitment, Sydney Airport has developed a range of customer focused initiatives.
Vision and Values
At Sydney Airport, our vision is to deliver a world-class airport experience and foster the growth of Sydney Airport for the benefit of Sydney, NSW and Australia. Our Values can be found here.
Customer Charter
The Sydney Airport Customer Charter is our commitment to providing the highest standards of customer service and a world-class customer experience.
Service standards
Our Service Standards provide practical examples of the level of service expected from the entire airport community. These are used to guide day-to-day interactions with customers and ensure a great airport experience.
Customer experience committee
To support our Customer Charter, Sydney Airport has a Customer Experience Committee (CEC) which reviews existing projects and recommends new initiatives to enhance the customer experience. This committee has participants from across the business recommending and tracking key focus areas relevant to customer experience.
Through the coordination of the CEC, work continues across the business to prioritise the areas of opportunity for improvement that have been identified as key drivers of customer satisfaction. These include, but are not limited to: ambience, terminal presentation, passenger processing and customer service.
Service Excellence training
With the customer at the heart of everything we do, we have four Service Qualities which provide a common language when delivering consistent service. These qualities are caring, helpful, proactive and approachable. To equip our team with practical ways to implement our service qualities, we conduct interactive workshops. These service qualities will apply to every interaction with customers we serve - wherever that is within the business or across the Airport. Our customer satisfaction levels have been continually improving and are encouraging, but there is more to do. We invested in the team as we acknowledge that it is important to continue to build on their capability to provide an effective and consistent service experience.
Quality of service monitoring
Sydney Airport runs regular perception surveys with our customers on customer satisfaction on a regular basis:
- ACI ASQ – a global airport benchmarking program
- Our own customer satisfaction survey
- Real-time feedback using interactive Happy or Not devices
- Other specialised surveys, e.g. segmentation
The measures from these surveys and comments from our customers are used to identify trends and feedback to help the business:
- Ensure we are on the right track
- Identify what we need to focus on
- Monitor performance over a period
Sydney Airport conducts over 17,500 customer surveys through an external provider each year. They are conducted across the day to seek feedback on the quality and range of services provided at the airport.
The survey asks customers to rate experiences using a 5-point scale where 1 is Very Poor and 5 is Very Good.
Below is a chart outlining the overall experience score each year for both the International terminal (T1) and Domestic terminals (T2 and T3).
Initiatives
As part of the our international aeronautical agreements with airlines, we're delivering a step change in terminal presentation and airfield efficiency. We’ve undertaken extensive consultations with our airline customers to better understand and respond to their business needs.
To support our commitment to service excellence, we’ve developed a range of airport experience focused initiatives. Sydney Airport has invested $3.4 billion in airport improvements since 2002, and plans to invest a further $1.3 billion over the next five years.
We’re jointly investing around $500 million with the NSW Government to improve access to, from and around the airport by smoothing traffic flows and reducing kerbside congestion.
Other new and planned initiatives in response to feedback at Sydney Airport include:
- Increased cleaning and maintenance
- Improved facilities including upgraded bathrooms, more seating and energy efficient lighting
- New duty free, retail, food and beverage outlets
- Enhanced wayfinding, more direct paths, clearer lines of sight and simpler signage
- Terminal and airfield infrastructure improvements including expanded baggage systems, new aerobridges and gate expansions
- Technology enhancements including Biometrics and upgraded Wi-Fi
Feedback
In addition to customer surveys, our customers can provide feedback directly to the airport in a range of ways. All feedback is reviewed and considered as part of our regular continuous improvement programs.
To ensure consistency and corporate standards, we have a specialised team who respond to customer feedback. Sydney Airport invests in the latest cloud-based technology to ensure that your feedback is allocated and tracked by the relevant team member/s who have relevant expertise in your area of feedback.
If Sydney Airport fails to provide the quality of service you expect, we will respond to and address any feedback promptly and politely.
We are always keen to hear the views of our customers about your airport experience – what we do well and areas where we can improve. If you would like to provide any feedback to us about your experience at the airport, you can contact us via the Contact Us page.
As an airport, we work with our numerous business partners including airlines, border agencies and retailers. There are more than 31,000 people working at Sydney Airport across 800 businesses, so many airport workers do not work directly for Sydney Airport. In these instances, Sydney Airport may require the assistance of a third party to assist with a response. You may also contact third party service providers directly. Details of all our business partners are available on the Contact Us page.
Listening to our customers
Our ‘Rate Your Experience’ competition aims to encourage visitors to share their ideas on how we can improve. Your ideas are often incorporated into projects or become projects themselves! Learn more about the competition here.
Value of team input
We encourage our teams to share ideas on improving the customer experience. One of our key drivers of overall satisfaction is terminal presentation. To ensure teams can report any cleanliness or maintenance issues with ease, a specialised mobile-enabled reporting system to report any issues was created. This allows staff to send a real-time notification, including a photo, of an issue that needs to be addressed. Sydney Airport’s partners have also embraced the reporting system.
Team recognition
Our Service Star program acknowledges staff working across the airport community who consistently deliver high levels of customer service and embody Sydney Airport’s Service Standards. The Service Star program provides an opportunity to give recognition to the staff who consistently get it right and make a difference to your airport experience.
Customer service remains one of the top drivers of customer satisfaction, and influences the overall airport experience. It is essential that all staff across the airport community understand the importance of customer service and are aware of the role they must play in ensuring a world-class airport experience. The Service Star program is an opportunity to give recognition to the staff who consistently get it right and make a difference to your airport experience.
The airport community
Sydney Airport continues to work closely with our business partners to provide a positive airport experience across the airport community. Sydney Airport meets regularly with business partners, including airlines, ground handling agencies and border agencies, on customer and operational related surveys to receive feedback from their teams and customers to improve the customer experience.
As part of the international aeronautical agreements with airlines, there is a strong focus on delivering higher standards at the airport, with additional resources to deliver a step change in terminal presentation and airfield efficiency. We have undertaken extensive consultations with our airline customers to better understand and respond to their business needs.
Airport partners including Assetlink, Carbridge and SECOM have embraced our new reporting system, which enables their staff to nominate customer service improvement ideas. Several SNP Security staff have received additional qualifications in aviation transport protection and undergone audits to provide improved and friendlier service to passengers.
Customer service certification
Since 2015, Sydney Airport has annually achieved independent certification with the Customer Service Institute of Australia (CSIA), in recognition of our commitment to service excellence, customer-centric culture and industry leading complaint handling framework.
We were the first Australian airport to achieve certification for our complaint handling process. Our interactive complaint handling system and service model features a web-based application and associated smartphone app, which uses real time data for complaint resolution. The CSIA is Australia’s peak independent customer service body. It assesses performance against best practice complaint handling across a diverse range of industries and provides certification to the International Customer Service Standard (ICSS).
The CSIA certification involved a formal assessment process, including evaluation of customer facing and internal business units. Sydney Airport plans to leverage the information and support provided by CSIA to assist us in driving improved customer experience and business performance.
