Skift Asks: Do You Care About Aircraft Type When Booking a Flight?

Editor’s Note: As Skift hits a year in public existence, we are launching a new weekly survey series which we’re calling “Skift Asks.” The main objective of this survey series is to test out the assumptions travel industry insiders have on various issues and to ask the consumer whether they care about the at-times over-inflated, navel-gazing issues industry people obsess over. In other words, trying to bridge the disconnect between the travel industry and consumers.

This single-question survey is administered to the U.S. internet population through Google Consumer Surveys. The methodology and administration of the survey is explained here in detail.

The inaugural Skift Asks starts with a simple question: “Do You Care About Aircraft Type When Booking a Flight?” The aviation industry and the media covering it, especially the plane spotters and aviation geeks, spend inordinate amounts of time and verbiage obsessing over the aircraft companies — Airbus vs. Boeing, for most part — and cover every new product announcement and every toss and turn in the aircraft world.

But, do the general consumers care, especially when booking their flights? Do they take the aircraft type into consideration at all when booking? Do they understand the controversy around Dreamliner and will they make that a consideration when booking flights going ahead? We decided to test out the industry navel gazing, and the results below are clear.

The survey below was conducted through Google Consumer Surveys on general U.S. adult Internet population, between June 21 and June 23, 2013. 

Mobile users: click on the gallery below for results charts.

The overall result: About 70 percent said they don’t care, about 30 percent said they do.

Gender: The male-female ratio is relatively equal.

Age: The older — and presumably more picky/successful — you get, the more you start caring about the aircraft type and how it effects your flight experience. That’s the one takeaway from the result below.

Region: Respondents in the U.S. South care most about the type of aircraft, but the people of the Midwest really couldn’t care less.

Urban-rural-suburban divide isn’t that much of a divide here, except the rural America cares even less about the aircraft type.

Income divide results are to be expected, more affluent you are, the more picky you are.

To sum it up: Some major insights into consumer attitudes about aircraft types, across various categories in U.S.: