SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. — In December 2020, Air Mobility Command’s Air Transportation Passenger and Fleet Policy Branch established a working group to improve the end-to-end AMC passenger travel experience.
After lifting the COVID-19 stop movement order, a travel backlog of 19,000 passengers increased workload across AMC Patriot Express terminals.
Passengers then identified areas of concern, including a lack of communication and outdated passenger processing systems, which prompted the Passenger Experience Improvement Working Group’s (PEIWG) creation.
The PEIWG comprises roughly 22 members, including logistics, operations, acquisition, and customer service experts at all levels.
“When we started developing the PEIWG our primary focus was the 3-Cs — care for passengers, communication to passengers, and carrier interactions. We focused our attention on these areas first,” said Mark Robinson, AMC Directorate of Logistics, Engineering and Force Protection Air Transportation Division deputy chief.
The PEIWG developed many short-, medium-, and long-term tasks to reach the end goal of better aligning the DoD travel experience with the commercial industry.
Since December, the PEIWG has completed short-term tasks establishing a bi-weekly working group meeting and developing a seasonal Patriot Express Travel-Gram. Additionally, the team directed all air passenger terminals and Navy-operated terminals to communicate updates to passengers at specific time intervals and update the Interactive Customer Evaluation questionnaire, allowing passengers to share their complete flying experience. Upon receipt and review of the questionnaires from the passengers, the Passenger Policy Staff evaluates the information to improve the customer experience.
The mid-term tasks include implementing an alternate method to communicate travel updates to customers due to difficulties in the existing communication process.
They also intend to change AMC’s passenger processing system to automatically notify passengers of relevant flight information via email and SMS mobile texts.
The PEIWG’s long-term task is to create a DoD Passenger app so passengers can check real-time flight information similar to the commercial industry.
“The passengers’ expectation for flying on AMC Patriot Express missions or even on our gray-tails is the same expectation they have for flying on commercial flights,” said Col. Heather Cook, AMC Directorate of Logistics, Engineering and Force Protection Air Transportation Division chief. “This expectation is why we created this working group and why we are working so hard to bridge the gap between the government and commercial travel experience.”