Customer Growth Index
Up to $27bn left on the table each year by 2028
It's digital experience that wins or loses revenue. The Customer Growth Index (CGI) assesses digital performance, accessibility, booking flow and AI findability, all ranked against your competitors. Then we tell you what to fix and what it's worth.
CUSTOMER GROWTH INDEX · FOR THE INDUSTRY, BY THE INDUSTRY
The CGI was launched at IATA's AGM in Rio, June 2026, building on Raven's ground-breaking report on customer experience in aviation. One idea kept surfacing: the winners by 2035 won't be decided by capacity & efficiency, but by experience. Everyone agrees experience matters. Almost no one can say what poor experience is costing them. That's the gap the CGI closes - putting a revenue number on the experience airlines are getting wrong.
Digital performance measured from real users - Google field data, mobile and desktop separately, cross-checked against lab tests and tracked weekly, so you see a trend, not a snapshot. The Index separates the performance an airline controls (UX, design) from the latency it inherits from booking systems, so you're not marked down for what you can't fix.
How much friction a customer hits while booking: account walls, form length, speed through the funnel, and price transparency. A shallow, read-only probe walks the funnel in headless Chrome - it never books, pays or enters personal data. A Raven analyst completes the picture at Tier 2, walking the full journey to payment.
1 in 5 travellers has a disability - a large, loyal, underserved market. Accessible booking flows help you win it, and keep you clear of the EU Accessibility Act, ADA and UK Equality Act. Around a hundred automated checks run on desktop and mobile; a Raven analyst then walks the journey with a screen reader, end to end.
Whether AI assistants and answer engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews) can find, read and confidently quote you. Discovery is moving from search results to AI answers. We detect structured data in the fully-rendered site - schema.org, FAQ markup, llms.txt - and score content authority and answer-readiness. Reported as a score, not a £ figure.
Illustrative example
Meridian Air scores Priority (the weakest of our five categories) on accessibility, the area with the most to gain. On £400m of digital bookings, reaching the ~1 in 5 travellers an inaccessible flow turns away represents an estimated £12–18m a year of growth potential, before the loyalty and legal upside. The score maps where the upside sits, it is not a verdict.
Illustrative; Meridian Air is fictional.
We benchmark you only against your competitors.
| Carrier | Rank in type | CGI score /100 | Web Vitals | Accessibility | Booking Flow | AI Findability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meridian Air (your airline) | 3rd of 3 | 48 | Developing | Priority | Developing | Solid |
| Northwind | 1st of 3 | 86 | Leading | Strong | Leading | Strong |
| Solara | 2nd of 3 | 79 | Strong | Strong | Solid | Strong |
100 = a perfect score: no revenue lost to digital experience. 'Meridian Air', 'Northwind' and 'Solara' are fictional; scores are placeholders.
Priority (weakest)
Developing
Solid
Strong
Leading (strongest)
Customer-experience leaders achieve revenue gains of 5-10% and cost reductions of 15-25% within two to three years (McKinsey). For airlines, McKinsey puts modern retailing's opportunity at 15% of EBITDA by 2030.
An accessible booking flow wins an underserved, high-value market - and keeps you legally clear (EU Accessibility Act, ADA, UK Equality Act).
A customer comparing you with a category rival picks whoever loads faster, has simpler journeys and is easier to trust. Falling behind compounds.
TIER 01
Complimentary · Automated
CGI score ranked against your category; plain-English read on every measure; prioritised quick wins; evidence-strength rating on every score.
Tier 02
Paid · Raven analyst
Human judgement on what the scan can't see; screen-reader and real booking-flow testing; is the friction real and what it's costing; fixes prioritised by impact and effort.
Tier 03
Bespoke · Industry expert
Why deeper revenue leaks (price, trust, channel mix); how your NDC and distribution setup helps or hurts; wrestling control back from the OTAs; what's controllable and what to restructure.
Industry-leading aviation expertise, grounded in our own methodology and rating engine.
Index & Methodology Lead
Dr Conor Farrington designed the methodology behind Raven's customer growth and inclusive growth indices. A former Chief of Staff at aerospace startup SATAVIA (acquired by GE Aerospace in 2024), Dr Farrington is also a Policy Consultant at the Aviation Impact Accelerator/Whittle Lab, University of Cambridge.
Experience Director
Dr Louise Croft Baker is Experience Director at Raven and author of Aviation's New Flight Plan. She leads Raven's work turning customer experience into measurable growth, drawing on 20+ years in CX strategy and transformation with leading travel brands. She holds a PhD in Psychology and is a regular speaker and advisor on the future of travel.
Strategic Advisor
Justin Cooke is a digital transformation specialist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker and board advisor with nearly 30 years' experience helping travel, destination and aviation brands grow through technology. Since 1997, he has worked with IAG, NetJets, Expedia, Small Luxury Hotels of the World and Europcar, advising on digital strategy, customer experience, e-commerce, loyalty, data and AI.
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