Turning flight disruptions into opportunities to build customer loyalty with Menzies Aviation

Due to a combination of complex factors from staffing challenges to severe weather, flight disruptions today are 300% higher than in 2019. While many disruption causes are unavoidable, this understandably causes passenger frustration. Disruptions are therefore an essential moment to go above-and-beyond to secure customer loyalty.

In early 2025, Menzies Aviation (Menzies), a global aviation services business supporting some of the world’s busiest airline operations, partnered with Uber for Business to streamline disruption management processes. Through the partnership, Menzies aimed to enhance the passenger experience, and uplift data transparency and visibility for airline customers in Australia.

Menzies steps in for major airlines to support passengers when disruptions happen, either booking them into a hotel or helping them get home. Previously, Menzies encouraged local passengers to go home and keep taxi receipts to claim reimbursement through the airline, a process that was slow and arduous. Most passengers opted to book hotels instead which took hours to organise, from sourcing and allocating rooms to arranging transport.

Late-night cancellations, especially those close to Sydney Airport’s curfew, was one of the company’s biggest challenges as there would be no opportunity to repair the aircraft or rebook passengers, and fatigue and frustration would be high.

The average handling time for a single disruption was up to four hours: a strain on both passengers and staff. Other challenges associated with this approach included:

• Passenger frustration: An outcome of long wait times as staff managed a very manual process was a negative passenger experience at an already difficult moment.
• Limited transparency and high fraud risk: Physical taxi vouchers were prone to misuse and over-charging, with no reliable way to audit per‑trip spend or confirm that journeys were strictly to and from the airport.
• Unpredictable costs: Buffer charges and inconsistent pricing from taxis made it difficult to forecast and allocate spend by airline, incident or route.

Menzies standardised and streamlined ground transport during disruption moments with Uber for Business, introducing a single, controlled way to move passengers quickly while giving airlines real‑time visibility over disruption expenditure.

• Uber vouchers: While passengers are still at the baggage carousel or lining up at the check-in desk, Vouchers can be distributed to individuals digitally in seconds, sending them on their way home or to a pre-booked hotel using a service they know and trust to get them there.

• Managing costs: Value, time and location controls can be set by Menzies which helps manage the budget for airline customers, and reduces instances of fraud.

• Tracking and management with the Uber for Business dashboard: Provides live trip tracking, detailed reporting, anomaly detection, and accurate cost allocation by airline, incident, and cost centre.

Over just six months, the shift to Uber for Business has delivered measurable savings and service improvements, alongside positive feedback from airline customers and their passengers. Results include:

• Cost savings: Airlines save over $10,000 per disrupted flight on average.
• Reduced hotel stays: Hotel overnights have dropped by 62%, which alone can represent savings of over $15,000 per incident featuring a full flight.
• Bespoke benefits: One major airline partner that previously used taxi vouchers found the average cost per passenger trip has dropped by more than $130. Applied across a full flight with two trips per passenger (to and from the airport), it recorded a saving of over $27,000 for a single disruption event.
• Faster resolutions: Disruption handling time from cancellation to the last passenger leaving the airport has been halved from nearly four hours to just under two on average.

The partnership with Uber for Business hasn’t just resulted in significant cost savings and greater operational visibility for Menzies, it’s also helped turn challenging disruption moments into chances to build loyalty among airline customers.

Menzies has seen an increase in customer satisfaction scores across all carriers, and one of its major airline partners even recently achieved the highest disruption-handling score in the APAC region as a direct result of the partnership. Passenger disruptions – sorted.

Give passengers and crew the freedom to move while your team stays in control. Find out more about how Uber for Business can help your airline business today.