An industry white paper titled The Next Evolution of CX Delightors in U.S. Airports has been officially released at PTE World 2025 (Passenger Terminal Expo), following the panel session of the same name.
Authored by Sushanta Das, CEO of tRetail Labs, and Prof. Dr Thorsten Merkle of Zurich University of Applied Sciences, the paper introduces a methodology for redefining how airports measure and design customer experience across food and beverage (F&B) environments – with global scalability in mind.
With strategic industry input from Andrew Weddig, executive director of the Airport Restaurant & Retail Association (ARRA), the study draws from a nationwide survey of more than 1,500 US airport travelers across three major hubs.
“PTE is where global innovation in airport passenger experience takes flight,” said Das, speaking live from the show floor. “We’re here to connect with airport commercial teams and passenger experience leaders who want to use CX Delightors + Airport Airside Consumption Model – not guesswork – to reshape experiences in a measurable, human and emotionally intelligent way.”
A framework grounded in research – and built for action
The white paper introduces a CX Delightors framework that integrates eight core experiential attributes that influence customer perception, from speed of service and staff friendliness to product quality and value for money. It also introduces an Airside Consumption Model – a validated academic model that maps emotional states (AirsideEnjoy, AirsideFear, AirsideStress) to travel behavior in the airside environment.
Through attribution modeling and AI analytics, the framework correlates these insights with sales per passenger by outlet type, cuisine and terminal, enabling airports to intentionally design emotion-to-spend pathways while identifying “emotion blind spots” – zones where commercial performance lags due to unmet emotional needs.
By integrating the CX Delightors + Airside Consumption Model into their operations, airports can move from generalized feedback to precision-targeted experience design. This framework is intended to empower commercial and CX teams to identify which emotional states dominate different terminals or traveler flows, tailor outlet formats and service strategies accordingly, and align staffing, promotions and layout with passenger mood and behavior. When linked with transactional data, it reveals where and why travelers choose to spend – or not spend – during their journey, unlocking missed revenue opportunities and elevating the airport from a point of transit to a destination of delight.
Whether planning a new concourse or optimizing an underperforming zone, this model is designed to offer a scalable blueprint to deliver measurable, traveler-centric outcomes.
PTE World 2025 is taking place April 8, 9 & 10 at IFEMA in Madrid. Click here for more PTE World news and click the logo below to register for the conference and your FREE expo pass.
