Hello from the American Association of Airport Executives conference in Denver, Colorado. Janelle Aslam conducted live interviews at the conference in June 2023 and we are excited to hear from Tommy Bibb, Aviation Consultant and prior AVP Operations and Maintenance at Nashville Airport Authority; Marco Toscano, Director of Customer Experience at Denver International Airport; and Joseph Kennedy, Business Development Manager at Smiths Detection.

The Hold Room, Season 2 Episode 20 – Tommy Bibb, Marco Toscano, and Joseph Kenney

Transcript

[Introduction]

TJ: Welcome to The Hold Room with ACC: a quick update on all things relating to airport development as well as the Airport Consultants Council.

Laura Canham: Hello from the American Association of Airport Executives conference in Denver, Colorado. Janelle Aslam conducted live interviews at the conference in June 2023 and we are excited to hear from Tommy Bibb, Aviation Consultant and prior AVP Operations and Maintenance at Nashville Airport Authority; Marco Toscano, Director of Customer Experience at Denver International Airport; and Joseph Kennedy, Business Development Manager at Smiths Detection.

[Interview]

Janelle Aslam: Hi Tom. So nice to have you here on The Hold Room podcast. You are an industry veteran. I'd love to know about your background 1^st and then also your perspective on customer experience and what we can do to improve it.

Tommy (Tom) Bibb: Thanks, Janelle. It's a pleasure to be with you. Background, I spent just over 32 years with the airport in Nashville. And had a variety of departments and functions under my purview over that time. Operations and maintenance certainly were a big part of that 22 of those 32 years. But passenger experience is critical. You know, we were an airport in active growth mode and you're an airport first, a construction site 2nd and maintaining that positive experience is critical. We had a lot of opportunities to work on that both in the building, in front of the building, and the behind the building and by that I mean terminal, landside, and airside. So we tried to work on that every day actually.

Janelle: That’s great. Can you tell me about one of the examples you think is really like best in class in terms of something you implemented to improve passenger experience?

Tom: Yeah, I'll take a what's probably an easy one. And that's restroom modernization of restrooms, making them more comfortable and more bright. Easy in and out, not congested. Trying to get in and out of the facilities, just bringing up refresh with new fixtures, more modern three in one sinks with soap, water drying capabilities. But restrooms are a big factor in the passenger experience. Restrooms and parking will get you in trouble quickly. We put a lot of emphasis on restrooms, parking accessibility, walking distance and things like that, but those are a couple of easy examples on the things that we focused on to try to not only maintain but greatly improve the passenger experience.

Janelle: Great. So how did you actually listen to your customers? How did you gather feedback from them to make sure that you were moving the needle and improving that experience for them?

Tom: Like most airports, you know, do surveys and things like that. But we paid really close attention to our website and comments that came in and we kind of had a policy: three business days to get a response unless it was something really significant. And then you still get a response and. Follow up with a more detailed answer if that's what was called for. But got a lot of feedback that way. Being in the capital and a lot of state legislature there, we got a lot of feedback from the community and just through informal channels we always took that stuff very seriously and took it to heart and tried to take it and use it and, and make things better.

Janelle: Excellent. Can you talk to me a little bit about diversity, equity, and inclusion and how that implemented into your past experience?

Tom: The airport should reflect the community that it resides in. Everybody has a little bit different opinion of what the positive passenger experience should be. So, we did a lot of work outreach with various organizations and things of that nature to understand what various groups to make sure that those needs were being met and one that I'm particularly proud of, maybe more than anything in my entire career there, was/fell into the world of ADA with adult changing tables in some of our family restrooms because it opens up the door for so many more people to travel. That prior to that air travel would have been off the table simply not an option. And it was so well received when we did that on the personal level that was something I felt really, really good about.

Janelle: Nice. That's awesome. How did you communicate these change efforts to?

Tom: You know, a lot of outreach on social media. We had a staff that took care of that for us and pushed those messages out. We actually had a lighting system on one of our new garages and we could do the lights to reflect certain things. Maybe if it was the Heart Association week or breast Cancer week or whatever it happened to be. But we use social media a lot and we use some of the amenities we had built into our new facilities to help push those messages. We did some sign language. At times we have live music in building and we would have somebody come and sign the words along with the music. And that was kind of neat because that really improve that experience for people that had that impairment.

Janelle: That's great.

Tom: So, we tried social media. A lot of things, just some of the in-house amenities that we have we could take advantage of it.

Janelle: Guys, what about employment? Did you do anything from a DEI element to make sure that your employment also modeled the residential structure?

Tom: Yeah, we did a good job. Basically, it's kind of started with the leadership team to make sure the leadership team again reflected the community and being sensitive to how we approached different groups and create opportunities for success not only for the person but for the organization as well. And I can see that although I've retired from the airport. You can see that throughout the organization it's a very diverse leadership team and then all the way through the organization as a whole.

Janelle: So, as we end this interview and I'm really appreciative of all of your insights here, but I would love to know as you look to the future, what are you most excited about in terms of the new developments to really improve customer experience?

Tom: Some of the things I think are really moving the needle on passenger experience are better concessions and things of that nature. Gate delivery on concessions at some of the larger airports because we tend to get through security and we go from point A to point B, we get to our gate and a lot of times we walk by things because we just want to get where we know we need to be. But good concessions and having the concessions reflect national options as well as local music and entertainment in the buildings. You see that a lot now. That was all over our facility and you see it in many places. I think there's just a lot more awareness. People are in the terminal longer now than they used to be good. Good parking facilities where there's walking distances or short transportation. There's a number of things, I think airports, are doing a lot better. You know it's kind of a drop off to take off mentality. Parking all the way to your gate and making that experience everything it can be all the way through.

Janelle: Excellent. Well, Tom, I look forward to hearing more insights from you in the future. Thank you so much for your time.

Tom: Well, you're welcome. Thank you.

Janelle: Marco, I am so happy that you're here to talk with us at the Hold Room. So, tell me a little bit about what you do at Denver.

Marco Toscano: Thank you for having me. Yeah. I’m the director of customer experience. So, within my realm of responsibilities are voice of the customer, customer research data, customer metrics, documentation, as well as looking over the customer journey map and how our customers interact with our report and their entire journey from Pena Blvd. all the way over to their flight. And what does that mean of them? Trying to create a good experience for them as they go through the process.

Janelle: Wow, that's ama