KLM - Rate My Flight

KLM - Rate My Flight

KLM is promising to bring transparency to the flights booking process by publishing customer ratings by each flight on the booking engine. The airline has been gathering data on passengers flight experiences through a ‘Rate My Flight System’ and is posting the results of those passenger ratings alongside flight searches. Cumulative star ratings for each flight, based on customer feedback, appear by each flight number as passengers review schedules available for booking. The number of comments which make up that star rating are also listed. Detailed passenger comment cards on the flight experience appear for each flight.

There are ‘thumbs up’ and ‘thumbs down’ points for each comment to show what passengers liked or disliked about their passenger experience. KLM says it publishes comments as written, filtering only sensitive personal data on passengers, their seat mates and crew names, and any unsuitable language. The system is being rolled out slowly and has only been released in the Netherlands and the UK so far, but KLM says it is part of a larger program of improvements.

“Showing stars in our search-flow is part of a bigger concept,” says Jan Willem Kluivers, of KLM’s digital strategy team. “This includes informing customers on their upcoming flight information, asking customers how they experienced their flight (enabling repair of any issues) and last, being transparent to future customers but also to our crew on their performance.” Adding ratings to the booking process is part of a larger trend by airlines to work towards more product transparency for potential customers. Ryanair has recently added a live flight review feature to its passenger app, and recently published its first performance report. Various airlines are working with TripAdvisor or Routehappy to give customers metrics which might guide their choices.