Shopping or dining? Analyzing user behavior to flight delay

Flight delay has been becoming an increasingly severe problem for the global airports and airlines, which not only causes substantial economic losses but also engenders passengers' negative emotion and reduces their satisfaction to the services of airports and airlines. Despite the negative consequences, flight delays - especially major flight delays - objectively bring passengers extra time to explore the facilities of airports. This offers airports and airlines an opportunity to provide proper services and make strategic recommendations to passengers, thereby mitigating the negative impact on them in the face of delays. In this study, we analyze a large-scale airport dataset and investigate whether and how the shopping and dining behaviors of the passengers are influenced by flight delay. Preliminary results show that flight delay significantly increases both the time and the time ratio spent by the passengers near shops and dining categories.