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From page 121...
... P A R T   I I Specific Survey Guidelines Introduction User surveys are still the most common way for airports to obtain information about their customers and other users. Although they are undertaken for a wide variety of reasons, they can be grouped into two broad categories: those intended to measure customer or user satisfaction or related customer research aspects, and those intended to obtain information to support airport planning and development activities.
From page 122...
... 122 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research • How air passengers spend their time in the airport and which facilities and services they use, • Spending patterns by air passengers and airport employees in airport concessions and how these vary by air passenger or employee characteristics, and • Attitudes toward the airport by users and external stakeholders. Since many of these questions involve attitudes or user characteristics that cannot be observed directly, the only way to answer them is to ask the users themselves.
From page 123...
... Specific Survey Guidelines 123   Having good information on the wide range of issues typically addressed by airport user surveys improves the quality of planning and decision making. At the same time, obtaining good information costs money.
From page 124...
... 124 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research because of budgetary limitations on the number of flights that can be included in the survey. Therefore, the smaller the number of flights sampled, the more such combinations will be excluded, and the less likely it is that the characteristics of the passengers on the sampled flights will correspond to those of the target population as a whole.
From page 125...
... Specific Survey Guidelines 125   • Sampling strategy -- the strategy for selecting survey respondents to reduce and control potential bias in the survey sample (i.e., the extent to which the characteristics or opinions of the sample differ from the target population) ; • Questionnaire -- the questions used to collect information from the survey sample (or a printed document containing those questions)
From page 126...
... 126 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research • Online surveys • Telephone surveys • Mail surveys Intercept interviews by survey staff are still perhaps the most common type of airport user survey. Survey interviewers approach potential respondents at an appropriate location where the respondents can be expected to have time to answer the survey questions, such as an airport gate lounge, and solicit the potential respondents' participation in the survey.
From page 127...
... Specific Survey Guidelines 127   greater use of online and telephone surveys as well as steps to reduce concerns about touching questionnaires, pens, or tablets in interview surveys. The recommended 6-foot social distance still allows for interview surveys so long as interviewers take care to maintain this.
From page 128...
... 128 10.1 Introduction A survey of air passengers involves a number of difficult challenges because of the wide range of information that may be required and the limited opportunity to perform the survey. Some air passengers are anxious to reach the boarding gate in good time to board their flight, while others spend time in airport concessions and arrive at their boarding gate shortly before boarding commences.
From page 129...
... Air Passenger Surveys 129   An air passenger survey may be initiated to gather information on a specific issue, such as the use of different ground transportation modes in order to perform an air quality emissions analysis for environmental impact documentation of an airport project. However, given the cost and effort involved in performing a survey, consideration should be given to whether there are other information needs that can be met at the same time by expanding the scope of the planned survey.
From page 130...
... 130 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research This program includes several different surveys covering air passengers and airport employees, but the most widely used is the survey of departing air passengers. These surveys are generally undertaken four times a year using a standardized survey questionnaire and a minimum of 350 respondents for each survey.
From page 131...
... Air Passenger Surveys 131   Three of the surveys asked questions about facilities or services (such as baggage claim) for arriving passengers, although the surveys were only administered to departing passengers.
From page 132...
... 132 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research • Oakland International Airport (OAK) 2014/15 Ground Access Study (Corey, Canapary & Galanis Research 2016)
From page 133...
... Air Passenger Surveys 133   organization) rather than the Metropolitan Airports Commission in order to gather data on ground access travel to and from MSP for use in developing a stand-alone airport travel behavior model as part of the Metropolitan Council's regional travel behavior inventory efforts.
From page 134...
... 134 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research It can be seen from Table 10-2 that, although some characteristics of air travel parties were collected by all four of the longer surveys, other characteristics were only collected in some of the surveys. In addition to presenting different options for the same question, the surveys also varied in the level of detail for a particular question.
From page 135...
... Air Passenger Surveys 135   10.3 Survey Methodology The circumstances under which air passengers spend time at an airport have an important influence on the choice of survey methodology. Passengers are available to be surveyed for only a relatively short time and may have activities they need or wish to undertake during this time.
From page 136...
... 136 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research These include how to account for air passengers traveling together and the variation in air travel characteristics by time of the day and day of the week. 10.3.1 Issues Specific to Air Passenger Surveys The first issue to consider is that air passengers often travel in groups (air travel parties)
From page 137...
... Air Passenger Surveys 137   A related issue is the extension from air party travel patterns to vehicle trips, which are typically required for groundside and ground access planning. In some cases (e.g., rental cars or private vehicles parked at the airport)
From page 138...
... 138 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research (a) Oakland International Airport (b)
From page 139...
... Air Passenger Surveys 139   (a) Oakland International Airport (b)
From page 140...
... 140 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Personal travel shows the reverse pattern, with resident personal trips increasing toward the end of the week, with the highest proportion on Fridays. Visitor personal trips are at their highest proportion on Sundays and decline steadily during the following weekdays, reaching their lowest proportion on Thursdays and increasing again on Fridays and Saturdays.
From page 141...
... Air Passenger Surveys 141   period (typically 30 to 40 minutes) after enough passengers are in the lounge to provide a representative sample of air parties and before boarding commences.
From page 142...
... 142 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research row of seats closest to the podium, then select every fifth passenger, seated or standing, also counting to the left and proceeding outward from the seats closest to the podium in a general counterclockwise direction. • For a survey of passengers exiting security screening, the interviewer should select the next passenger to exit the screening area after completing each interview.
From page 143...
... Air Passenger Surveys 143   They can be programmed to ask questions that probe for detailed information on specific issues from certain respondents in a way that is transparent to the respondents and the interviewers. They can also be programmed to perform consistency checks on the response data and generate clarifying questions to resolve apparently inconsistent or implausible responses.
From page 144...
... 144 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Excluding these passengers may bias the sample if those arriving close to flight departure time have different characteristics from those arriving earlier, as is quite likely. In general, passengers arriving at the gate once boarding has started will not have time to complete the questionnaire before boarding and, therefore, if survey questionnaires are to be distributed to these passengers, they will need to be designed so that they can be completed later (e.g., on the flight)
From page 145...
... Air Passenger Surveys 145   A number of issues may arise with self-administered surveys and need to be carefully considered in the wording of the survey questions, design of the questionnaire, and analysis of the results: • When distributing the questionnaires, it will not always be possible to determine which passengers are in the same air party, so it is common practice to distribute questionnaires to every adult passenger. In some air parties, more than one passenger will provide responses, while other passengers may decide not to complete the questionnaire if they see someone else in their air party doing so, or they may complete it together.
From page 146...
... 146 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research While this process can be partly automated, there will be questionable cases where the analyst will not be able to resolve whether two responses are from the same air party, and inspection of the detailed response data will be necessary to make a decision. This process adds to the data-cleaning workload and constitutes one of the trade-offs with the lower cost of self-administered surveys.
From page 147...
... Air Passenger Surveys 147   The nonsecure arrivals area of the terminal can be either open or enclosed; the former is typical of smaller domestic operations, and the latter is more usual at larger domestic or international operations. The domestic arrivals hall usually provides an opportunity to interview arriving air passengers with any greeters (if present)
From page 148...
... 148 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research With the exception of the terminal curb front, these locations will only allow a subset of air passengers to be surveyed. However, they may allow a larger sample of this subset to be obtained to supplement a more general sample of air passengers obtained at other locations, or the subset may be the target of the survey.
From page 149...
... Air Passenger Surveys 149   After Security Screening An alternative approach is to intercept passengers as they exit security screening. This approach has the advantage that air parties are generally still together, and the survey will intercept all passengers clearing security, whether they go directly to their gate or not.
From page 150...
... 150 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Airline Gate Lounges One of the most common locations for an air passenger survey is the airline gate lounge. Passengers in the lounges are generally seated and are usually willing to participate in a survey.
From page 151...
... Air Passenger Surveys 151   Once a survey team has finished surveying a particular flight, it will need to move to the next flight to be surveyed (unless the team is scheduled to take a break)
From page 152...
... 152 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research or in addition, a tablet or other EDCD can be mounted in a kiosk and potential survey respondents directed to the kiosk and invited to complete the survey. Some airports have invited air passengers to complete a survey when they connect to the airport Wi-Fi system or even required a short survey to be completed as part of connecting to the Wi-Fi system.
From page 153...
... Air Passenger Surveys 153   A major concern with panel surveys is ensuring that the panel members participating in it are reasonably representative of the target population. Therefore, analysis should be undertaken to compare the relevant characteristics of the survey respondents to those of the target population.
From page 154...
... 154 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research between flights is not typically known before conducting the survey. In the absence of more specific analysis, it would be prudent to increase the sample size by a factor that depends on the number of flights sampled and the average number of passengers interviewed per flight, as discussed in Appendix A
From page 155...
... Air Passenger Surveys 155   own data on the ratio of well-wishers to originating passengers in the course of performing air passenger surveys. The number of well-wishers can be estimated by multiplying the number of originating passengers by an appropriate factor based on the data in Table 10-5.
From page 156...
... 156 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Sampling Passengers The first consideration in sampling air passengers is to decide whether to sample individual passengers or air travel parties. As discussed earlier in this chapter, this decision depends on the purpose of the survey and is influenced by the survey method adopted.
From page 157...
... Air Passenger Surveys 157   not particularly critical. The objective is to ensure that interviews take place throughout the area in question, and so the interval should be chosen in light of the number of interviews anticipated to be performed and the number of passengers expected to be present in the area.
From page 158...
... 158 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Therefore, a sampling plan that fully reflects these factors would group flights by the following: • Airline • Destination (possibly grouped by region) • Time of day In practice, at many airports this approach would generate a very large number of separate groups, and it would be impossible to develop a viable sampling plan by selecting a sample of flights from each combination of these factors.
From page 159...
... Air Passenger Surveys 159   (e.g., the peak month) or on an annual basis.
From page 160...
... 160 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Source: OAG for week of October 20–26, 2019 (Official Airline Guide n.d.)
From page 161...
... Air Passenger Surveys 161   different for other airports (and indeed may be different at BOS at other times of the year) , the point of the example is to show the potential variation in traffic composition that typically occurs at major airports.
From page 162...
... 162 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research respondents misunderstand a question being asked. As a general rule, industry terminology and jargon (such as "queue")
From page 163...
... Air Passenger Surveys 163   survey to be integrated with other transportation planning studies. It is not uncommon for these zones to be significantly smaller than zip codes or postal codes.
From page 164...
... 164 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research questionnaires should avoid the use of terms such as "public transit," which can mean different things to different respondents. The design of the questionnaire (and, if EDCDs are used, the EDCD program)
From page 165...
... Air Passenger Surveys 165   Although most passengers parking a vehicle for the duration of their air trip will use the parking facilities designated for daily or longer parking rather than those for hourly or shortterm parking, some passengers making a 1-day or overnight trip may choose to use the closest parking to the terminal and pay the higher rate. Finally, some survey respondents may think of a private vehicle standing at the terminal curb for a few minutes while the passengers and their baggage are unloaded as being "parked" for a short while.
From page 166...
... 166 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics Airline Origin and Destination Survey database at https://transtats.bts.gov/ (see bibliography)
From page 167...
... Air Passenger Surveys 167   If there are N total survey responses, and ni of those responses reported some characteristic i that composes a proportion pi of the population in the control data, then the proportional weight wi that should be assigned to each of the n responses is given by: =w p N n i i i Since all N of the survey responses must have reported some value for characteristic i (even if this was only "don't know" or "refused") , a weight wi will be assigned to each survey response.
From page 168...
... 168 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research to correspond to the total number of passengers on the flight implicitly assumes that all the passengers on the flight have the same distribution of characteristics as the respondents. For example, if only four respondents are surveyed on a particular flight, and one of these is leaving on a 10-week trip to Japan, it would be incorrect to infer from this that 25% of the passengers on the flight are leaving on 10-week trips to Japan, but that would be the effect of weighting the responses in this way.
From page 169...
... Air Passenger Surveys 169   10.8.3 Correcting for Differences Between the Survey Results and External Data Once a set of weights has been determined to correct for known bias in the sampling methodology, an additional set of weighting factors can be calculated, using the weighted results to correct for differences between the weighted results and external data on the composition of the passenger traffic using the airport. The most obvious potential difference between the survey results and external data on the composition of the passenger traffic at the airport is if the percentage of passengers in each flight destination market given by the survey responses does not agree with the passenger traffic reported by the airlines.
From page 170...
... 170 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research terms of the level of annual traffic if they so desire, but they will then be fully aware that they have done this and should recognize the accuracy limitations that this implies. One advantage of expressing the survey results in terms of the sample size is that it allows users to easily distinguish whether the results reflect the distribution of air passenger characteristics or air party characteristics because the response totals will be quite different in each case.
From page 171...
... Air Passenger Surveys 171   One other issue that is often raised in this context is the use of incentives for survey respondents. Those who have tried respondent incentives are inclined to think they are not worth the cost or the challenge of hauling them around and accounting for them.
From page 172...
... 172 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research 10.10.3 Local Terminology In designing survey questions, it should be recognized that words and phrases may have different meanings, or subtle variations of meaning, in different parts of the country. While it is possible to write a questionnaire using local terminology, many of the passengers will be visitors from outside the region and may misinterpret the questions.
From page 173...
... Air Passenger Surveys 173   the concessions. Therefore, it is important to record such information as the time the greeters arrived in the terminal, the scheduled arrival time of the flight taken by the passengers they were meeting, and the time that the greeters were interviewed.
From page 174...
... 174 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research • The time before flight departure that air passengers and any accompanying well-wishers arrive at the airport • The time well-wishers leave the airport, either before or after the flight departure • The time that greeters arrive at the airport with respect to the arrival time of the flight they are meeting • The time that air passengers and any accompanying greeters leave the airport after the flight arrival 10.12.2 Ancillary Data To handle the sampling rates of this type of survey during the analysis, it is necessary to ensure that the survey population is well defined. Groundside interviews will yield air passenger information linked to specific flights.
From page 175...
... Air Passenger Surveys 175   Whether the survey is covering the entire airport for a short period or covering well-defined segments at different times over a longer period (as discussed in Section 10.12.4) , the requirements will be about the same in terms of the total number of interviewer days.
From page 176...
... 176 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research 10.12.4 Time and Space Considerations Large international airports have multiple terminals and groundside facilities. Groundside surveys must be conducted at numerous locations and across the whole day of airport activity, from 6:00 a.m.
From page 177...
... Air Passenger Surveys 177   and a common drop-off location for all rental car agencies. Table 10-6 shows the expected number of completed interviews per 8-hour shift for short, focused interviews conducted by efficient interviewers.
From page 178...
... 178 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research departing passengers will do in the future. Keeping the past and future verb tenses in a logical order on a generic questionnaire is not easy.
From page 179...
... Air Passenger Surveys 179   10.12.6 Calculating Response Weights Each groundside survey interview will have a number of different response weights attached to it at the time of analysis. These weights will all be calculated from the proportion of interviews to a given population.
From page 180...
... 180 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research logbooks and flight record log sheets; check-out/check-in sheets for EDCDs, radios, and other equipment; prepaid mail-back envelopes; and flight gate schedule sheet. • Logistics -- badging of interviewers, organizing of survey field office, equipment for field office (printer, copier, computers, Internet access, telephone, fax machine, power extension cords, etc.)
From page 181...
... Employee Surveys 11.1 Introduction Many of the issues related to planning and designing employee surveys are common to other types of airport user surveys (and the reader will be referred to those sections of the guidebook where applicable)
From page 182...
... 182 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research for an airport to survey employees of other organizations regarding their job satisfaction. However, situations may arise where the airport may partner with other employers to undertake an airport-wide survey on job satisfaction and related issues.
From page 183...
... Employee Surveys 183 invitation to participate in the survey. It should be stressed that this code is unique to each respondent, and they should not share it with colleagues (or anyone else)
From page 184...
... 184 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Alternative methods, such as including the questionnaire as an attachment or in the body of the email, are not recommended because inexperienced users often have trouble dealing with these files and returning the completed questionnaires can be problematic. If email addresses are known for most but not all employees, those without email addresses could be surveyed by mail or telephone.
From page 185...
... Employee Surveys 185 11.5 Questionnaire Wording and Length Questionnaire length, format, and clarity, and the use of pretests and pilot tests, are discussed in Chapter 5. The questionnaire for employee surveys should be relatively short since employees are usually busy during work time and value their breaks.
From page 186...
... 186 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research the employees working for them to respond, including allowing them to complete the survey during working hours. Involving the appropriate managers during the survey planning can help obtain their support.
From page 187...
... 12.1 Introduction Many of the issues related to planning and designing concessionaire and other tenant surveys are common to other types of airport user surveys, and the reader will be referred to those sections of the guidebook where applicable. Airport tenants include a wide range of organizations, including concession operators (retail, food and beverage, car rental, courier, entertainment, etc.)
From page 188...
... 188 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research • To obtain information on customer service through techniques such as mystery shopping or studies to obtain price comparisons with identical or similar off-airport shops and services (e.g., restaurant chains)
From page 189...
... Concessionaire and Other Tenant Surveys 189 12.3.2 Mail Surveys Mail surveys are similar in approach to Internet surveys but require each tenant's mailing address rather than email address. Questionnaires are mailed to each tenant with a postagepaid reply envelope, and responses are mailed back.
From page 190...
... 190 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research aircraft owners, and other organizations. The sample size will depend on the purpose of the survey, the desired level of accuracy, and the number of tenants in each category.
From page 191...
... Concessionaire and Other Tenant Surveys 191 • Make it easy for the tenants to respond. Use of email to distribute the questionnaire allows it to be easily forwarded to the appropriate person.
From page 192...
... 192 Surveys of Area Residents 13.1 Introduction As a general rule, the target audience for resident surveys will be adult members of the general public who live in the region served by the airport or another pertinent community area, such as the area surrounding a competing airport, and the survey sample will be representative of the community as a whole. This is particularly true in cases where the support of the general public for a planned undertaking is to be solicited.
From page 193...
... Surveys of Area Residents 193 attractive to passengers, what messages about the airport would resonate with passengers, and what information sources passengers are using to make airport choices. In unusual circumstances, such as the recent pandemic or the events of 9/11, resident surveys can be used to determine what would make potential passengers feel safe flying.
From page 194...
... 194 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research persuasive or even specialized interviewers try numbers at which a refusal occurred another time. Only if they are refused a second time is the number abandoned.
From page 195...
... Surveys of Area Residents 195 assumptions about the importance of the results, and the risk of making a wrong decision based on the findings. In opinion research, the confidence level is customarily fixed at 95%.
From page 196...
... 196 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research • Dual use: 18% • Landline only: 3% • No phone: 1% (Blumberg and Luke 2020) Cell-phone numbers tend not to change over time, so for sampling purposes, they follow the same individual.
From page 197...
... Surveys of Area Residents 197 of languages are spoken by large enough proportions of the population that multiple languages should be considered, and there are airports that translate questionnaires accordingly. It is also important to note that even in areas with high percentages of people who speak other languages, many of these people also speak English, and some would prefer to be interviewed in English.
From page 198...
... 198 Surveys of Area Businesses 14.1 Introduction In most cases, the target audience for a business survey will be all businesses within the geographic area the airport typically serves. A business may be narrowly defined as a for-profit company, or it may be more broadly defined to include government agencies and nonprofit organizations.
From page 199...
... Surveys of Area Businesses 199 • Demand for airport services for presentation to current and potential airline partners, • In areas where there is airport choice, reasons for choosing the airport over another nearby airport, • Perceptions of airport accessibility, • Attitudes toward various ground access modes, • Use of various ground access modes, • Awareness of the airport's airside and groundside services, • Assessments of specific facilities and services, • Facilities and services that are particularly attractive to business travelers, • Facilities and services that business travelers view as needing improvement, • Facilities and services that business travelers would like to see added, • Current and prospective business air travel for demand-forecasting purposes, • In the COVID era, or in other circumstances where there is passenger reluctance to fly, conditions under which business travelers would or would not fly, and • The role of the airport in contributing to the local and regional economies for use in economic impact studies. 14.3 Survey Methodology Four methods are typically used for business surveys.
From page 200...
... 200 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Response rates tend to be low, but this can be mitigated to some degree by advance communication and follow-up. Data quality for closed-ended questions in online surveys can be controlled via the questionnaire programming.
From page 201...
... Surveys of Area Businesses 201 It therefore may be most appropriate to address the survey to the head of the organization and ask that it be redirected to the appropriate individual. The position or positions that individual might hold and the reasons for requesting that this particular person reply should be clearly explained.
From page 202...
... 202 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research is called "respondent burden." No respondent should be burdened with excessive or unnecessary requests for information. Unless it is absolutely necessary, it is also important to avoid asking for information that is difficult to obtain.
From page 203...
... Air Cargo Surveys 15.1 Introduction Airports require information on the air cargo activity and the operations of the firms engaged in air cargo operations at the airport for a variety of reasons, including: • Forecasting future levels of air cargo activity at the airport; • Planning air cargo and related facilities and infrastructure to meet current and future needs; • Estimating the volume, composition, and travel patterns of truck activity generated by the air cargo activity at the airport (for planning on-airport and airport access roadways) , as well as accounting for the airport contribution to regional truck traffic in environmental impact studies; and • Accounting for air cargo operations in economic impact studies.
From page 204...
... 204 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research an aircraft. These latter shipments may even be (and often are)
From page 205...
... Air Cargo Surveys 205 airport-to-airport airlines that depend on freight forwarders to pick up and deliver the shipments. The integrated carriers obviously have complete information on the air cargo they are handling.
From page 206...
... 206 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research 15.2.3 Data Sources To obtain a more detailed profile of the air cargo moving through an airport, the total weights of enplaned and deplaned cargo reported by air carriers can be supplemented by data obtained directly or indirectly from air cargo surveys or detailed import and export data, and in some cases expanded using other types of data. There are three broad categories of such data: • Publicly available data collected or assembled at a national level but allowing more detailed analysis at the level of individual airports • Data available on a subscription or fee basis from commercial data providers that are derived in part from publicly available data but enhanced using additional public and industry data and organized to be easier to use and analyze than if working directly with the public data • Local surveys undertaken as part of an airport-specific, regional, or state air cargo study Publicly Available Data The two primary public data sources are the import and export trade data collected by the U.S.
From page 207...
... Air Cargo Surveys 207 omitted from the CFS. Although the underlying data are primarily shipment data, the FAF includes procedures for estimating truck flows on the highway network.
From page 208...
... 208 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research air cargo carriers, freight forwarders, and local shippers. The scope of the study may extend beyond a specific airport to the larger region or even the state.
From page 209...
... Air Cargo Surveys 209 An alternative method for obtaining information on air cargo activities is to undertake stakeholder interviews. Although air carriers, shippers, and forwarders may be reluctant to release detailed information on air cargo shipments or cargo activity in response to a formal survey, it is possible to address the issues of interest in the course of an interview.
From page 210...
... 210 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research ensure that the questions are answered correctly but indicates to the respondents that the designer of the survey is knowledgeable about the industry, which may help encourage them to respond. A particular difficulty arises with asking questions about commodities that are handled.
From page 211...
... Air Cargo Surveys 211 Questions that may be useful to ask freight forwarders include: • On average per week, what is the weight of your outbound shipments by all modes? • About what percentage of your outbound shipments by weight are sent by air cargo?
From page 212...
... 212 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research questionnaire that the respondent can complete at a convenient time after the interview and return by mail or email. It is usually helpful to state that the results of the survey will be shared with the participants (if the survey sponsor allows this)

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