A voice in the skies: Listening to airline passenger preferences

This study aims to identify the impact levels and priorities in the service expectations that passengers have when identifying a preferred airline. The results are based on probabilities and impacts, and can help airlines to accurately understand the preference criteria of their passengers. The priorities of the passengers may differ according to the airline chosen; therefore, the probabilities shown in this study can inform senior airline managers about the passenger perspective. This study uses the Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis-2 (SMAA-2) method. SMAA-2 identifies the priorities and impact levels of passengers’ expectations on airline selection, and the ranking of alternative firms according to the probability. According to the obtained results, Airline 3 (AF₃) is the most preferred airline with the highest confidence rate. This airline operates based on a low-cost model that allows passengers to choose additional services for additional charges. The passenger expectations that have the highest impact on the preference when selecting an airline are 1) ticket prices, 2) punctuality, and 3) booking convenience. Free in-flight food and beverages, the variety and quality of the food and beverages, and voyager miles programs for loyal customers are found to have no impact on the ranking of airlines. The expectations identified by the passengers in this study are related to the outcome quality dimension, with services dominated by flexible features. The findings of this study define the passenger as a rational decision maker who is price sensitive.     

The impact of an aircraft's service environment on perceptions of in-flight food quality

Airlines are currently striving to improve the quality and quantity of in-flight food, because research has shown that catering is a key attribute for a customer's satisfaction with airline service quality. But the role of an airline's service environment in forming customer perceptions about food quality has not yet been properly investigated. Using electronic word-of-mouth data from N = 3996 airline passengers, this study deploys a linear regression model at multiple levels to relate perceived in-flight food quality with both the overall service environment and its formative components. The results clearly unveil the importance of an aircraft's service environment on perceived in-flight catering quality; perceptions of food quality are primarily influenced by the quality of cabin staff service, followed by entertainment and seat quality. Instead of continuing with the current practice of signing up top chefs to improve menus, airlines may instead consider putting their management focus on service improvements.     

Airline choice by passengers from Taiwan and China: A case study of outgoing passengers from Kaohsiung International Airport

Understanding what factors passengers consider when selecting an airline is critical, as airlines can utilize this information in market segmentation and marketing strategies. However, few studies have explored how passenger demographics and the nationality/type of carrier (full service or low-cost; regional or international) affect the choice factors of passengers when selecting airlines. The main objective of this study was to explore the airline choice factors considered by passengers, compare the choices of passengers with different demographics, and analyze which factors are emphasized by passengers from Taiwan and China when selecting airlines. We conducted a questionnaire survey of outgoing passengers at Kaohsiung International Airport in relation to 22 factors underlying their choice of airline. Using factor analysis, we identified the five factors: ground services, convenience, in-flight services, price, and travel availability. We then utilized cluster analysis to identify four groups, each concerned with price, comfort, convenience, and ground services, respectively. Nationality, age, income, flying frequency, and purpose of travel lead to differences in deciding which factors were considered by cross-strait passengers. Passengers of different nationalities concerned with different factors when selecting airlines. Our findings can add to the completeness of existing research as well as provide airlines with reference in developing marketing strategies for different customer groups.     

Passenger perceptions of service quality: Korean and Australian case studies

This paper investigates air passengers’ perceptions of 11 factors that may influence their buying behaviour namely, in-flight service, reservation-related service, airport service, reliability, employee service, flight availability, perceived price, passenger satisfaction, perceived value, airline image, and overall service quality. Analysis of variance and an independent sample t-test are applied to data collected from Korean and Australian international air passengers. The results reveal that passenger perceptions are significantly different across airlines, seat classes, and usage frequencies.     

Are low-cost carrier passengers less likely to complain about service quality?

Complaints made by airline passengers to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) are often used in academic research and in the media as a proxy for the quality of commercial air service in the United States. In this paper, we test whether passengers of network carriers are more likely to make a complaint to the DOT about service quality failures than passengers of low-cost carriers. Through a fixed-effects regression, we find that passengers of low-cost carriers like Southwest Airlines are less likely to complain about service quality than passengers of network carriers like United Airlines, given the same levels of service quality and controlling for yearly fixed effects. This behavior could be explained by price-based expectations of service quality, lack of information about how to complain to the DOT, or qualitative differences in front-line customer service between airlines.     

Airline services marketing by domestic and foreign firms: differences from the customers’ viewpoint

Based on a survey of 1014 passengers of five European airlines, this paper reveals differences between passengers on the Turkish domestic airline and those on four foreign airlines on the same flight destinations with respect to demographic profiles, behavioral characteristics, understanding of airline service dimensions, and satisfaction levels. Differences between the two passenger groups are highlighted in terms of age, sex, education, occupation, sector affiliation, location of domicile, travel purpose, travel frequency, service expectations, and satisfaction levels. It is concluded that the differences in consumer profiles and expectations are valuable clues for domestic and foreign airline firms in understanding their consumers and in designing their marketing strategies.     

FIPIA with information entropy: A new hybrid method to assess airline service quality

This study proposes “FIPIA with information entropy” as a new, hybrid method to assess airline service quality by identifying the most important priorities for airline passengers and producing recommendations to airline management for optimal resource allocation to improve service quality and customer satisfaction. The proposed method is an improvement over IPA, IPIA and FIPA methods, through the introduction of information entropy and fuzzy logic to the analysis of importance, performance and impact dimensions of airline service quality to improve interpretability and actionability of analysis results. This study also offers airline managers a list of what they should improve in resource allocation in order to increase service quality considering customer satisfaction and create value by managing the relational capital more effectively. The new hybrid method was field-tested by administering a 26-item questionnaire to passengers of a major airline operator, analyzing the responses using the Importance-Performance-Impact Analysis (IPIA) method, fuzzy logic and information entropy. The analysis revealed four main dimensions of airline service quality, namely reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness with 17 constituent attributes. The case study revealed that (1) resource allocation was adequate only on four attributes; (2) seven service quality attributes were identified as needing further management focus on resource allocation; (3) six service quality attributes received more resources than necessary which should be shifted to other attributes; (4) dimensions of reliability and tangibles needed more focus than others. The proposed hybrid method of FIPIA with information entropy can be employed for any industry where service quality depends on multiple attributes.     

Expectations and perceptions in airline services: An analysis using weighted SERVQUAL scores

This study measures airline service quality based on data collected at a Turkish airline using SERVQUAL scores weighted by loadings derived from factor analysis. The results demonstrated that “responsiveness” dimension is the most important, while “availability” is the least important element of quality. Passengers’ educational level is an important variable affecting their expectations and perceptions. Additionally, passengers’ gap scores significantly differed by their educational level, frequency of flight, and flight purposes.     

Investigating the effects of service recovery quality elements on passengers' behavioral intention

This study intends to analyze how the elements of restoring the quality of airline service influences the airline image, recovery satisfaction, and behavioral intentions of airline passengers. For this testing, a survey was conducted on passengers with an experience of dissatisfaction of airline services. A total of 240 responses were analyzed by using structural equation modeling. The results revealed that among the recovery quality elements, promptness had a positive influence the image of the airline. Additionally, a recovered image of the airline had a positive influence on the recovery satisfaction and behavioral intention. The findings of this study may improve our understanding of consumer responses to the airline company's efforts to recover service failure.     

Investigating passengers’ intentions to use technology-based self check-in services

As more and more airlines have introduced technology-based self check-in services, it has become increasingly important to understand the factors affecting airline passengers’ attitudes toward this new form of check-in services and also their intentions, especially from Asian passengers’ perspectives. An empirical study was conducted among Taiwanese airline passengers using the technology acceptance model (TAM) as the basic research model while considering additional factors for further analysis such as external stimuli, perceived service quality, perceived behavioral control, need for service, and perceived risk. The findings revealed that attitude and external stimuli best explain passengers’ behavioral intentions to use the kiosks, whereas perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have little effect on their intentions. These findings suggest that airlines in Taiwan should persuade passengers to acquire a more positive attitude toward the new check-in kiosks and should consider implementation of incentive strategies in encouraging passengers to adopt the self check-in service.     

Airline in-flight entertainment: the passengers’ perspective

Following relaxation of economic regulation in many aviation markets, the competition amongst airlines has intensified in recent years. This has resulted in improvements in airline products, especially in the in-flight services. One of the areas on which airlines have focused their attention is the provision of personal in-flight entertainment (IFE). In 1998, airlines spent $1.8 billion on IFE. However, the industry is faced with a number of questions in relation to such levels of investment: Are the investments justified? Does IFE influence passengers’ choice of airline? Does IFE have a revenue-generating potential? What does the future hold as far as the IFE services are concerned? This paper addresses these questions based on a passengers survey and literature review. The results indicate that while IFE is not amongst the primary factors affecting passengers’ choice, it contributes greatly to passengers’ satisfaction with airline services. While provision of IFE can currently act as a differentiating factor, in the future it will become part of passengers’ expectations. It has also become apparent that, while IFE has the potential to generate some revenue, it would not be enough to cover the total costs associated with the installation and running of IFE systems. The impact of IFE would be felt, indirectly, through increase in passenger loyalty which should have a positive impact on airline revenues.     

Latent class models of international air carrier choice

This paper uses a market segmentation approach to identify airline passengers’ potential segments and preferences toward international air carriers. The modeling approaches consist of the stated preference method and the latent class model. The stated choice experiments were designed based on service attributes in the international airline choice context. Empirical data was collected from airline passengers who have flown from Taipei to Tokyo or from Taipei to Hong Kong. The latent class model accommodating preference heterogeneity outperforms the multinomial logit model as indication of a better approach to analyze airline choice behavior. The latent class model with individual socioeconomic and trip characteristics in segment membership functions also improved model fit relative to the corresponding latent class model without individual characteristics. The values of willingness to pay for service attribute improvements vary across international air routes and segments. Passengers are willing to pay more for better service quality. In order to develop effective marketing and operational strategies for the international air travel market, this study highlights the importance of exploring airline choice behaviors by routes and segments.     

How airline service quality determines the quantity of repurchase intention - Mediate and moderate effects of brand quality and perceived value

Drawing on an integrated framework of service quality theory, this study develops and demonstrates a mediation-moderation model of airline service quality that influences the repurchase intentions of passengers. This model associates service quality with individual behavioral and perception—brand awareness and perceived values and examines the buffering role of brand attractiveness and experience in the decision-making processes. In a sample of 451 passengers, somewhat as expected, airline service quality enhances the positive effect of repurchase intention on airline company service because it fosters a positive link between brand awareness and perceived value. Unsurprisingly, brand attractiveness and memorable brand experiences are found to strengthen the positive effect of brand awareness and perceived value. Several alternative models were used to check the robustness of our findings. Patterns of moderated mediation modeling for theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.     

What are passenger perspectives regarding airlines' environmental protection? An empirical investigation in Taiwan

Many airlines recognize the importance of environmental protection. The airlines implement a number of environment-friendly activities related to in-flight services and wish to trigger passengers' support and therefore inquire as to their preferences. Because these activities are not identical between airlines, it is not known which items are actually supported and which items are opposed. In this paper, major airline environmental protection activities were collated, and the Smart partial least square software was used to analyse data from 442 passengers who have experienced air travel in the past 3 years. The results showed that in general, passengers would prefer to choose airlines that supported environmental protection activities. However, several activity items would be rejected if passengers felt their rights or interests being compromised. It was also indicated that people from countries at different stages of economic development had varying preferences regarding their support of airlines' environmental protection activities, and the young generation had more concern about environmental protection than others. The findings of this research could be beneficial for airlines setting up their differentiated marketing strategies for enhancing both environmental protection efforts and business performance.     

In-flight physical surroundings: quality,satisfaction, and traveller loyalty in the emerging low-cost flight market

The purpose of our research was to investigate the relationships among overall service quality, customer satisfaction, and behavioural intentions by considering the moderating impact of in-flight ambient conditions (air quality, temperature, odour, and noise) in the low-cost airline industry. A survey was conducted on international flights. Results of the structural equation modelling from a sample of 402 passengers indicated that quality and satisfaction are significant drivers of intentions; and satisfaction acted as a significant mediators. Additionally, supporting the moderating impact of ambience, findings from the tests for metric invariance revealed that the effect of satisfaction on intentions was stronger for the high air quality, temperature, odour, and noise groups than for the low groups; and the strength of the relationship between quality and intentions was greater in the high noise group than in the low noise group. Our results will help practitioners/researchers develop effective strategies/theories for passenger satisfaction and retention.     

The impact of airline service quality on passengers’ behavioral intentions using passenger satisfaction as a mediator

This research study measures the perception of airline service quality based on data collected from Pakistan International Airline (PIA) passengers using SERVQUAL. It investigates the impact of service quality dimensions on passenger's behavioral intentions in presence of mediator (passenger satisfaction). The data is collected through an adopted SERVQUAL instrument from the respondents in the domestic and International waiting lounges of PIA. The data is analysed using reliability statistics, correlation analysis and through hierarchal regression analysis. A systematic random sampling technique is used to analyze the study sample and PROCESS macros was used to run mediation analysis. The results reveals that passenger's satisfaction mediates the relationship between airline service quality and behavioral intentions. Practically, PIA should not only improve on Service Quality but should build up quality consciousness among on ground and inflight employees; pay attention to reliable factors and establish customer goodwill through enhanced services; regard reliability factors and enhance employee accomplishment. Implications of these results for management policy and practice are highlighted as guidelines. PIA managers can now better understand the importance of service quality and its long-term benefits in the form of customer loyalty.     

Service quality of low-cost long-haul airlines – The case of Jetstar Airways and AirAsia X

The study investigates why passengers choose a particular airline when travelling on a long-haul low cost carriers focusing on Asia and Oceania. A survey of Jetstar and AirAsia X passengers finds that assurance is the most important factor when choosing long-haul low cost carriers, followed by two other important factors-airfare and reliability. These results suggest that there are no significant differences regarding service quality between Jetstar Airways and AirAsia X.     

Evaluating frequent flyer programs from the air passengers' perspective

Frequent flyer programs are used as a common strategy in the airline industry. They can be defined as a service quality attribute that consists of some redemption of free flight miles and can determines the selection of airlines. It has been argued that they can act as an entry barrier, but limited attention has been paid to assessing the impact of this strategy on passengers’ perceptions of service. They are generally part of broad airline service quality parameters and thus can creates dilemmas for airline managers, passengers and regulators regarding their added value, costs and competitive effects on industrial organization.     

Promoting passenger comfort and wellbeing in the air: An examination of the in-flight health advice provided by international airlines

Cases of airline passengers developing deep vein thromboses and contracting infectious diseases during flights have led to airlines' provision of in-flight customer health advice coming under increased scrutiny. By means of a manifest content analysis of the information provided in 50 international airlines’ in-flight magazines, this paper examines the nature and presentation of the health advice that is supplied and comments on the different approaches individual airlines adopt.     

Predicting airline passengers’ loyalty using artificial neural network theory

The study explores a model for predicting airline loyalty using the antecedents indicated in previous studies. Data was collected using a questionnaire distributed to 614 domestic air passengers using the snowball sampling method. The measurement tool had 16 scale items constructed on the recommendations of previous studies. Passenger satisfaction, airline service quality, passenger perceived value, and airline image are identified as determinants for airline loyalty. The predictive analytical approach of Artificial Neural Network theory and covariance-based Structural Equation Modelling for determining causality is employed in the study. The artificial neural network model predicts airline loyalty with 89% accuracy. Sensitivity analysis suggests passenger satisfaction as the most significant predictor of airline loyalty. The causal study supports that passenger satisfaction mediates the relationship between airline service quality and airline loyalty.