Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport | How Service Design Helped Baiyun Airport Take Off

Over the years, it has received numerous awards and recognitions, including being named one of the Top Three Airports in Asia-Pacific by Airports Council International (ACI) and receiving recognition for outstanding service quality at China’s national civil aviation service awards.

It is Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport — an airport that has consistently made passenger experience a strategic priority and is now exploring how technologies such as artificial intelligence could further transform airport services.

Air travel has become an unavoidable part of modern life.

Yet the airport experience itself is often far from ideal.

By comparison, highly regarded consumer service brands can achieve Net Promoter Scores of around 80, while airports globally tend to fall below the overall service-industry benchmark, averaging only around 38.

At the time of the project, Baiyun Airport’s NPS stood at an uncomfortable 31.6%.

NPS, or Net Promoter Score, is a widely used metric for measuring customer advocacy.

Put simply, it indicates how likely customers are to recommend a product, service, or brand to others.

Baiyun Airport had long been committed to continuously improving passenger experience.

It had already introduced a frequent-traveler membership program and was examining the passenger journey from multiple angles, consistently developing new service innovations across the airport.

But improving NPS is a systemic challenge.

It requires not only a strong theoretical foundation, but also extensive practical experience in translating insight into service innovation.

That is precisely where China Bridge’s expertise lies.

China Bridge had developed its own Five-Dimension NPS Framework.

Under this framework, NPS is shaped by five interconnected dimensions:

Sensitivity Points
Exposure Points
Memory Points
Self-Benefit Points
Altruistic Benefit Points

These dimensions influence and reinforce one another.

Improving NPS therefore means working across all five dimensions: uncovering deeper customer needs, identifying critical pain points, strengthening memorable moments, creating meaningful benefits, and ultimately giving passengers more reasons to recommend the experience to others.

China Bridge has always followed one fundamental principle:

Start from the client’s real conditions, and use service design to strengthen the value of the brand.

Rather than imposing generic frameworks, China Bridge applies a systematic methodology to create solutions that are both distinctive and implementable.

Having previously developed customized service and brand experience programs for companies such as Coca-Cola, Bank of Communications, Volkswagen, and other leading brands, China Bridge immediately stood out to Baiyun Airport.

It was the kind of partner they had been looking for.

And so, a partnership built around service began.

China Bridge understood that meaningful transformation had to begin with the “soul” of the airport.

And that meant starting with the service mindset of the people who worked there.

Step 1 | Insight: Replace Assumptions with Reality

Airport employees were asked to conduct spontaneous interviews with passengers inside the terminal.

The exercise was designed to do two things at once:

break down assumptions and rebuild understanding.

What needed to be broken was employees’ subjective interpretation of what passengers wanted.

What needed to be established was a direct understanding of what passengers were actually experiencing.

One Baiyun employee reflected:

“During the insight stage, I discovered that many things I had assumed I understood after years of working at the airport were simply not true. Once I began observing real passengers, I realized how different reality was from what I had imagined.”

Turning “my airport” into “your airport” means allowing passengers to feel that the space has genuinely been designed around them.

That is the highest expression of service.

The impact of the interviews also sparked much greater interest among employees in learning the principles of service design.

Given the characteristics of airport operations, China Bridge then introduced another key tool:

the Customer Journey Map.

One employee summarized its value well:

“It helped us understand the customer experience as a whole, and see how people, objects, spaces, and processes interact to influence that experience.”

A customer experience is made up of a sequence of service touchpoints.

Connect those touchpoints together, and they become a customer journey.

Traditionally, different stages of that journey are delivered by different departments.

Looking at the entire journey continuously through a customer journey map allowed Baiyun Airport employees to move beyond departmental boundaries and see the passenger experience as one connected system.

Step 2 | See the Whole Journey, Not Just Your Department

The airport experience had historically been divided according to internal functions.

Passengers, of course, do not experience an airport that way.

They do not think:

This belongs to the security department.

That belongs to terminal operations.

This problem belongs to another team.

They simply experience one journey.

By mapping that journey from beginning to end, Baiyun Airport’s teams began to understand how individual service moments combined into an overall perception of the airport.

This shift was essential:

from managing isolated operational tasks to designing a coherent passenger experience.

Step 3 | Co-Create: Turn Pain Points into Delight

The third stage was co-creation, one of the defining features of China Bridge’s service design approach.

Co-creation means activating the knowledge, experience, and imagination of everyone involved and bringing those perspectives together in an intensive creative process.

One Baiyun employee described it this way:

“I never expected it to be such a mentally demanding journey. You had to stay completely focused and think incredibly fast. Ideas kept appearing throughout the process. It was intense and exciting — but when you realized we might actually turn passenger pain points into moments of delight, it all felt worthwhile.”

Through energetic discussion and collaboration, the joint China Bridge–Baiyun team used the Five-Dimension NPS Framework as its starting point.

Throughout the process, the team remained focused on four core principles:

Intelligence. Efficiency. Interaction. Detail.

These principles were then embedded across different stages of the passenger journey, including departure, transit, and arrival.

More than ten distinctive service concepts and prototypes were eventually developed.

Departure | Make the Journey Begin Before Passengers Feel Lost

For the departure journey, the team explored how advanced data collection and information sharing could make the airport experience easier from the very beginning.

Through a mobile app, passengers could quickly access:

real-time flight information;
airport maps and layouts;
route guidance;
channel and queue conditions;
and other information relevant to departure.

The goal was to reduce uncertainty and help passengers move through the airport more efficiently and confidently.

Security | Remove One of the Most Frustrating Moments in the Journey

Security screening quickly emerged as one of the areas passengers cared about most.

The team therefore focused heavily on improving this experience.

New service concepts were designed around three stages:

before screening, during screening, and after screening.

Before screening, passengers could receive clearer advance information.

During screening, the process could be accelerated.

And after screening, unexpected problems could be handled more effectively.

One particularly frustrating issue was what to do with items that failed security requirements.

Traditionally, passengers might be forced to abandon such belongings.

The new concept explored options such as mailing prohibited-but-legal items back to the passenger’s home, helping reduce unnecessary financial loss and frustration.

Arrival | Reduce Burden, Reduce Stress, Increase Speed

For the arrival experience, four keywords guided the design:

less burden, less stress, greater speed, and greater efficiency.

Technology-enabled positioning and information sharing were explored to help passengers move through the airport more easily.

The concepts went beyond baggage management and logistics.

The team also designed services around:

transfers;
passenger pickup;
parking;
shopping;
and other arrival-related scenarios.

The goal was simple:

leave as few service blind spots as possible.

Beyond Functionality | Designing for Emotional Needs

The collaboration between China Bridge and Baiyun Airport placed particular emphasis on passengers’ emotional and social needs.

One example was “Cloud Social,” a concept that explored mobile internet-based social services within the airport environment.

The idea was that an airport should not only help people move efficiently.

It could also create new ways for people to connect, interact, and experience the space.

AI Enters the Airport Experience

For the first time, artificial intelligence was also introduced as one of the potential directions for future service innovation.

One representative concept was “Hello Xiaobai,” which emphasized human–AI interaction.

The concept aimed not only to enhance passenger experience and increase engagement, but also to generate valuable behavioral and service data.

That data could, in turn, create a foundation for more precise and personalized airport services in the future.

From Concepts to Passenger Advocacy

After three rounds of testing and iteration, the concepts were presented to passengers.

The reaction was highly positive.

Many passengers said that if these service ideas were actually implemented, they would be willing to recommend them to friends.

Based on the testing results, the proposed concepts had the potential to raise Baiyun Airport’s NPS from 31.6% to 50.25% — significantly above the industry average at the time.

For the Baiyun Airport team, however, the project created something even more important than a set of service concepts.

It introduced a completely new way of thinking.

One team member reflected:

“Over these two days, we learned the basics of a new language called ‘service design.’ It is a language that transcends countries and industries, yet permeates both life and work. It operates at the level of mindset and consciousness, helping us look beyond surface appearances, understand what lies beneath them, and systematically understand, define, and solve problems.”

“It also allows us to creatively design experiences for both internal and external customers. Ultimately, it is almost like producing a film — one that resonates deeply with people and succeeds with its audience.”

“Innovation is an endless journey. We have had the courage to take the first step, and I believe we can truly help Baiyun Airport take off.”

What China Bridge Learned from the Baiyun Airport Project