Is this frustrating communication mistake about to derail your travel plans this summer?

Is this frustrating communication mistake about to derail your travel plans this summer?

Summer 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most demanding travel seasons in years. Airfares are up, airports are stretched, Europe is potentially facing one of its most disruptive strike seasons in years, and across the globe, travelers are heading into a summer where disruptions look increasingly likely.

According to Deloitte, just 45% of Americans plan to take a summer vacation this year, the lowest figure in six years. Yet, those who do travel are spending more than ever: an average of $4,069 on their longest trip, up 17% from last year.

For travelers stretching their budgets, a disrupted trip will hit harder, both financially and emotionally. For the brands serving them, this is exactly when communication matters most. As cloud communications provider Sinch explains below, this summer will be a stress test they may not be prepared for.

The same frustrating playbook kicks in every time

When a disruption grounds half the departures at a major airport, tens of thousands of passengers find out at the board or through a notification - most likely a generic no-reply text advising them to call a customer service number.

According to a 2025 study by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, nearly two-thirds of travelers were left frustrated with the communication they received during disruptions and 57% said they simply wanted more information. But more notifications doesn't always mean better communication.

Tons of notifications, none of them helpful

Few industries generate as many automated messages from a single transaction as travel and hospitality. A single flight booking can trigger a confirmation email, multiple check-in reminders, a boarding pass notification, a gate assignment update, a delay alert, and a post-trip survey, all before the passenger has even landed.

And few industries have customers paying such close attention to company notifications - tracking flights, checking in, waiting for updates. But does any of this matter if customers don't feel heard or seen?

According to the State of Customer Communications report published by Sinch, which surveyed consumers around the world and business leaders across four industries, 48% of consumers cite message overload as a source of frustration with informational brand communications. A combined 39% flag poor timing as a major pain point, as well as redundant messages (31%) and lack of real-time information (20%) or personalization (17%).

In other words, the messages that frustrate people most aren't the spammy ones from strangers; they're the ones from brands they opted in to that fail to say anything useful.

When things go sideways, generic no-reply messages make it worse

Travel and hospitality brands sit on more customer data than almost any other industry - frequent flyer programs, booking history, seat preferences, meal choices, connection patterns, and more. The data to deliver genuinely personal communications is already there, and 70% of consumers expect this, according to McKinsey research. In difficult moments, that personal touch is what passengers actually remember.

And yet, when a flight is delayed or cancelled, most automated pipelines keep firing the same pre-scheduled messages regardless of who the passengers are and what's actually happening. None of it acknowledges the reality of the situation the passenger is in or gives them any useful way to respond.

Imagine being one of the hundreds of thousands of passengers caught up in the massive wave of flight cancellations earlier this year – scrambling for alternatives while your phone buzzes with a no-reply check-in reminder for a flight that no longer exists.

The same Sinch research found that more than 20% of consumers cite stale or outdated messaging as a specific frustration. In moments like this, it's easy to see why.

Consumers want to message back. Most brands won't let them.

Nearly 28% of consumers say their biggest frustration is hitting a dead end: receiving a message from a no-reply address with no way to respond or follow up. Most companies have built communications that only go one way, when what customers need, especially when things go wrong, is a conversation.

And when that dead end forces passengers to pick up the phone and re-explain their issue from scratch, the frustration only grows. The Sinch research found that 81% of consumers have a negative reaction when they have to repeat themselves across support channels; 42% call it frustrating, 24% say it wastes their time, and 15% lose trust in the brand entirely. Anyone who's ever called an airline after a delay, explained a booking reference to multiple people, and still not gotten a resolution understands exactly what that feels like.

Every no-reply notification is a missed conversation opportunity, and the cost isn't just to customer satisfaction and brand trust. When passengers can't get answers from their phones, they queue at the gate, flood the call center, and overwhelm airport staff. A well-designed, interactive conversational message, backed by AI that can handle replies at scale, can absorb much of that pressure before it even builds.

By acknowledging the disruption, offering options, and enabling real-time responses, companies can manage thousands of simultaneous rebookings, reduce queues, and deflect support calls - without every passenger having to fight for attention at a desk.

The conversations travelers need are already within reach

Consumers are already open to richer, smarter types of communications. Rich Communication Services (RCS), for example, takes messaging beyond a basic text, giving brands the ability to send branded, interactive messages with reply options built right in.

In a three-way test, when consumers were shown an RCS message with actionable buttons alongside a basic SMS and an MMS, over 40% preferred the richer experience of RCS for time-sensitive notifications like reminders.

Combined with AI, those conversations can scale and be handled in real time, without a human in the loop for every exchange. Research from Sinch's AI Production Paradox report found that 98% of enterprises are increasing their AI communications investment in 2026 and 62% already have AI agents live in production, with more than a third citing customer satisfaction and loyalty as their primary goals.

Customer trust is part of what makes that investment pay off. More than half say they'd trust AI for basic real-time updates, but that trust is fragile. A wrong answer at the wrong moment - an outdated rebooking option, a missed cancellation detail - can damage it forever.

One capability that determines whether that trust holds is the ability to carry context across conversations, so that when a traveler moves from a chat to a call, or switches channels mid-disruption, the AI already knows who they are, what they need, and what's already been said. That continuity is what turns an automated response into something that actually feels helpful.

Cancellations and delays can be forgiven. Poor communication might not.

Every traveler has a story about a journey that went wrong. Few remember the delay itself. Most remember how the company handled it.

Methodology

Sinch's State of Customer Communications research was conducted in January and February 2025. It includes a global consumer survey (2,800 participants across 12 countries) and four U.S. industry surveys in healthcare, finance, retail, and tech (400+ participants each).

This story was produced by Sinch and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.

Copyright 2026 Stacker Media, LLC

This story was originally published June 30, 2026 at 5:00 AM.