Season 2 Episode 20: Live Interviews from AAAE Annual Conference The Hold Room
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- News
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 1st 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
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 1st 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