The Problem

Flight delays are among the most emotionally charged experiences in air travel. They test not only operational reliability but also a traveler’s sense of being recognized.

At United Airlines, our data through March 2025 showed that while on-time flights achieved strong satisfaction, Net Promoter Scores fell to −18 for long delays (1–4 hours) and −50 for extremely long delays (>4 hours). Operational improvements and better communication had raised those numbers over time, but we faced a deeper challenge: how to make fairness felt in moments when the airline could not make time itself move faster.

United’s Change the Unchangeable initiative—aimed at transforming experiences even in situations beyond operational control—posed a simple but difficult question:

What if fairness itself could be designed?

Purpose and Scope

The Delay NPS research program sought to understand how customers deliberate about fairness during disruptions—how they interpret timing, gesture, and recognition as signs of care or neglect. Rather than studying compensation in isolation, we examined the psychology of fairness that underlies every act of delay recovery.

Our goals were to:

• Map the emotional journey of travelers from the first notification of a delay through resolution.

• Identify the tipping points when frustration turns into distrust—and what, at those moments, restores faith.

• Test compensation formats (vouchers, credits, miles, gifts) to see which gestures feel most proportional and human.

• Examine communication timing and tone across channels to determine when updates reassure versus inflame.

• Surface recognition cues—from loyalty tier to named apologies—that can lift fairness perceptions without raising cost.

The target was ambitious:
Bring the NPS for long delays (1–4 hours) to zero, and short delays (<1 hour) to parity with on-time flights.

Approach

We built a multi-phase mixed-methods program that captured both the emotional and behavioral dimensions of delay.

Phase 1 – Live Context

A diary study followed travelers through real disruptions in real time, tracing how emotions evolve hour by hour.
In parallel, our social media intelligence team monitored spontaneous posts for unfiltered sentiment, while secondary research benchmarked delay recovery in airlines, rail, hospitality, and healthcare.

Phase 2 – Signals and Consolations

Unmoderated video interviews explored how travelers experience communication—both United’s and external sources like FlightAware—and what they value most in “consolations” such as vouchers or amenity carts.

Phase 3 – Depth and Validation

Moderated 1:1 interviews examined how customers reason through fairness: what turns a detractor into a promoter even when delayed. A final survey (N≈500) validated patterns around communication satisfaction, fairness, and recognition value.

The Core Question

When does a gesture feel like justice?

This guiding question shaped every module and vignette. The work wasn’t about discovering a “perfect amount” of compensation, but about understanding the structure of acknowledgment—how timing, transparency, and tone transform transactions into acts of care.

Key Insights

1. Fairness Has a Temporal Threshold

Travelers don’t calculate in minutes; they sense in moments.
Across studies, two hours emerged as the “acknowledgment threshold”—the point where silence begins to feel like neglect.
Shifting first-offer gestures (e.g., meal vouchers) from ~3 hours to ~2 could yield a disproportionate lift in perceived fairness and NPS, even with minimal added cost.

“By two hours, I’m not angry about time anymore. I’m angry about silence.”

2. Symbolic Value Can Outweigh Monetary Value

A $15 meal voucher felt fairer than $15 in miles or travel credit.
Why? Because food is immediate and tangible—it signals care in the moment.
Miles and credits, though technically equivalent, were abstract and deferred. In moral terms, they felt like automation, not empathy.

This revealed a crucial principle: value is not fungible across emotional contexts.
Designing fairness means designing meaning, not just equivalence.

3. Proactivity Builds Trust—Up to a Point

Automatic gestures raised trust, but only when they aligned with customers’ own sense of “the right time.”
Too early felt mechanical; too late, performative.
Fairness, travelers suggested, lies in synchrony between organizational and human time.

The ideal act is anticipatory reciprocity: a gesture offered just as the traveler begins to wonder if they’ve been forgotten.

4. Bundles Dilute Meaning

Two small gestures rarely equal one decisive act.
Pairing a meal voucher with a small credit often felt fragmented, not generous.
Customers preferred clarity over complexity—a single, coherent expression of acknowledgment rather than multiple token ones.

5. Recognition Outweighs Remediation

Named apologies, loyalty-tier cues, or next-trip perks elevated perceived fairness as much as monetary increases.
Acknowledgment turned compensation from a transaction into a conversation.

“It wasn’t the voucher—it was the message that said, we know this happened to you.”

Quantitative Highlights

InsightEffectFirst-offer timing (2h vs 3h)+15–20pt perceived fairness gainProactive vs. reactive+25% trust improvementBundles vs. single gestures−12–18% fairness rating dropRecognition cues (tier/apology)Equivalent to ~$10 perceived value increaseMeal voucher vs. miles/credit (equal value)+20pt fairness differential

From Findings to Policy

The findings translated into a set of if-then policy rules tying delay length, controllability, and recognition to concrete actions:

• If delay ≈ 2h and cause controllable → Proactive digital voucher ($15–20) + named acknowledgment.

• If delay ≈ 3h (any cause) → Single decisive gesture (voucher or credit, not both).

• If overnight risk → Certainty script + recognition of repeat disruption.

• If traveler has elite status or repeat disruptions → Next-trip perk (low-cost, high-signal).

Each rule connects operational feasibility with psychological fairness efficiency—the smallest action that produces the largest perceptual return.

The Broader Insight

The research reframed delay recovery as a form of moral communication.
Compensation is not only about restoring utility; it is about restoring a traveler’s sense that they exist within a system that still sees and values them.

Fairness, we found, functions like recognition. It is less about the elimination of disappointment than the preservation of dignity.

“A good gesture doesn’t buy time back—it restores meaning to it.”

Impact

The Delay NPS program now informs:

• Updated compensation timing models aligned to emotional thresholds.

• New communication cadence standards balancing honesty with psychological pacing.

• A unified Delay Care Framework linking fairness, recognition, and NPS outcomes.

• Prototype self-service and proactive compensation flows in the United app.

Reflection

This project built on a central theme in my research practice: that design is a moral language.
When systems fail—as they inevitably do—the question is not whether we can erase failure, but whether we can respond in ways that still make sense to people.

In that sense, the Delay NPS study was not only about delay recovery.
It was about the ethics of timing, acknowledgment, and care—and about how fairness, when designed well, can make even waiting feel human again.