Multidimensional Seat Comfort and Its Influence on Passenger Recommendation Behavior: Insights from Skytrax Reviews

Year 2025, Volume: 9 Issue: 3, 676 - 683

Şahap Akan

https://doi.org/10.30518/jav.1773181

Abstract

This study examines how the multidimensional structure of seat comfort influences passengers’ recommendations. To this end, 1,062 passenger reviews from Skytrax of the world’s top 20 airlines from August 2008 and April 2025 were analysed using logistic regression. Five seat comfort variables were included: seat legroom, seat recline, seat width, aisle space, and TV screen viewing. The results indicate that all of these variables influence recommendation behavior, though to different degrees. Seat recline and aisle space were the strongest determinants, followed by seat width, viewing the TV screen, and seat legroom. This study contributes to the literature by moving beyond a generic satisfaction perspective and treating seat comfort as a multidimensional driver of passenger behavior. These findings are expected to have theoretical and practical implications, informing scholars' understanding of customer responses and guiding airline managers in improving service and seating strategies.

Keywords

Airline industry , Skytrax , Seat comfort , Recommendation , Consumer Behaviors

References

• Ahmadpour, N., Robert, J.-M., & Lindgaard, G. (2022). Impact of the seat on aircraft passenger comfort experience in the cabin interior. In Advances in Ergonomics In Design, Usability & Special Populations: Part II (Vol. 19).
• Akash, V. M., & Binoosh, S. A. (2022). Loyal and disloyal customer satisfaction in aviation industry. Proceedings of the 2nd Indian International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, 829–838.
• Alanazi, M. S. M., Li, J., & Jenkins, K. W. (2024). Evaluating airport service quality based on the statistical and predictive analysis of Skytrax passenger reviews. Applied Sciences (Switzerland), 14(20), 1–17.
• Anjani, S., Li, W., Ruiter, I. A., & Vink, P. (2020). The effect of aircraft seat pitch on comfort. Applied Ergonomics, 88(June), 103132.
• Anjani, S., Song, Y., Hou, T., Ruiter, I. A., & Vink, P. (2021). The effect of 17-inch-wide and 18-inch-wide airplane passenger seats on comfort. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 82(January), 103097.
• Ardiansyah, T., & Nurjanah. (2022). Entrepreneurial student motivation analysis through online media at universities in Jakarta: Binary logistic regression approach. Proceedings - 2022 2nd International Conference on Information Technology and Education, ICIT and E 2022, 257–261.
• Atalık, Özlem, Bakır, M., & Akan, Ş. (2019). The role of in-flight service quality on value for money in business class: A logit model on the airline industry. Administrative Sciences, 9(1), 1–15.
• Bakır, M., Akan, Ş., Özdemir, E., Nguyen, P. H., Tsai, J. F., & Pham, H. A. (2022). How to achieve passenger satisfaction in the airport? Findings from regression analysis and necessary condition analysis approaches through online airport reviews. Sustainability (Switzerland), 14(4), 1–20.
• Ban, H. J., Joung, H.-W., & Kim, H.-S. (2019). The text mining approach to understand seat comfort experience of airline passengers through online review. Culinary Science & Hospitality Research, 25(9), 38–46.
• Ban, H. J., & Kim, H. S. (2019). Understanding customer experience and satisfaction through airline passengers’ online review. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(15), 1–17.
• Caballero-Bruno, I., Wohllebe, T., Töpfer, D., & Hernández-Castellano, P. M. (2022). The effect of seating recline on sleep quality, comfort and pressure distribution in moving autonomous vehicles. Applied Ergonomics, 105(January), 103844.
• Cheng, P. E., Liou, M., & Aston, J. A. D. (2010). Likelihood ratio tests with three-way tables. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 105(490), 740–749.
• Domínguez-Almendros, S., Benítez-Parejo, N., & Gonzalez-Ramirez, A. R. (2011). Logistic regression models. Allergologia et Immunopathologia, 39(5), 295–305.
• Engel, M. S., Pfaffenbach, C., & Fels, J. (2016). Analysis of socio-cultural differences and psychoacoustic parameters in sound perception in a public park and its surroundings. Proceedings of the INTER-NOISE 2016 - 45th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering: Towards a Quieter Future, 1991– 1998.
• Eversdijk, S. M., de Vos, F. J. C., van Zee, A. A. T., Houtepen, N. C. A., van Haaff, M. I., Iserief, M. A. C., & Vink, P. (2024). Does a reclined backrest with less legroom meet the same comfort as a fixed backrest with 80 mm more leg room? Work, 1–9.
• Fuchte, J. C. (2014). Enhancement of aircraft cabin design guidelines with special consideration of aircraft turnaround and short range operations. In DLR Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. - Forschungsberichte (Issue 17).
• Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2019). Multivariate data analysis (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.
• Hosmer, D. W. (2000). Applied logistic regression. Wiley&Sons, Inc.
• Kleinbaum, D. G. (1994). Introduction to logistic regression. In Logistic Regression.
• Kock, N. (2017). Common method bias: A full collinearity assessment method for PLS-SEM. In H. Latan & R. Noonan (Eds.), Partial least squares path modeling (pp. 215–257). Springer.
• Kokorikou, A., Vink, P., De Pauw, I. C., & Braca, A. (2016). Exploring the design of a lightweight, sustainable and comfortable aircraft seat. Work, 54(4), 941–954.
• Kremser, F., Guenzkofer, F., Sedlmeier, C., Sabbah, O., & Bengler, K. (2012). Aircraft seating comfort: The influence of seat pitch on passengers’ well-being. Work, 41(SUPPL.1), 4936–4942.
• Kuprikov, M. Y., Orekhov, A. A., Shulga, Y. D., & Min, Y. N. (2021). Influence of passenger comfort requirements on the interior layout of long-haul aircraft. Civil Engineering and Architecture, 9(3), 820–827.
• Lacic, E., Kowald, D., & Lex, E. (2016). High enough? Explaining and predicting traveler satisfaction using airline reviews. HT 2016 - Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, May, 249–254.
• Lee, D., & Luengo-Prado, M. J. (2004). Are passengers willing to pay more for additional legroom? Journal of Air Transport Management, 10(6), 377–383.
• Lei, T., & Bae, K. T. (2013). Deviance statistics in model fit and selection in ROC studies. Medical Imaging 2013: Image Perception, Observer Performance, and Technology Assessment, 8673, 86731A1-8.
• Li, Q., Jing, R., & Xihua Zhu. (2024). Determinants of travel satisfaction for commercial airlines: A data mining approach. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 133(PF), 108597.
• Lincoln, T. M., Schlier, B., Strakeljahn, F., Gaudiano, B. A., So, S. H., Kingston, J., Morris, E. M. J., & Ellett, L. (2022). Taking a machine learning approach to optimize prediction of vaccine hesitancy in high income countries. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 1–12.
• Liu, J., Yu, S., & Chu, J. (2019). The passengers’ comfort improvement by sitting activity and posture analysis in civil aircraft cabin. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2019, 1–10.
• McFadden, D. (1974). Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice behavior (pp. 105–142).
• McGill, S. M., & Fenwick, C. M. J. (2009). Using a pneumatic support to correct sitting posture for prolonged periods: A study using airline seats. Ergonomics, 52(9), 1162–1168.
• Mendoza, R. L. (2018). Health risk, price efficiency, and airline seat size regulation. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 11(2), 122–132.
• Miller, E. L., Lapp, S. M., & Parkinson, M. B. (2019). The effects of seat width, load factor, and passenger demographics on airline passenger accommodation. Ergonomics, 62(2), 330–341.
• Nick, T. G., & Campbell, K. M. (2007). Logistic regression. In Topics in Biostatistics.
• Panda, A., Perannagari, K. T., & Govindaluri, S. M. (2025). Identifying key predictors of airline passenger satisfaction: A comparative model evaluation study. 2025 IEEE International Conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches in Technology and Management for Social Innovation, IATMSI 2025, 3, 1–6.
• Park, S., Lee, J., & Nicolau, J. L. (2020). Understanding the dynamics of the quality of airline service attributes: Satisfiers and dissatisfiers. Tourism Management, 81(January), 1–8.
• Phothong, K., & Worasuwannarak, B. (2021). Aircraft seat: The study of airline seat pitching and comfortable. E3S Web of Conferences, 244, 1–5.
• Roach, G. D., Matthews, R., Naweed, A., Kontou, T. G., & Sargent, C. (2018). Flat-out napping: The quantity and quality of sleep obtained in a seat during the daytime increase as the angle of recline of the seat increases. Chronobiology International, 35(6), 872–883.
• Roumeliotis, S., Schurgers, J., Tsalikakis, D. G., D’Arrigo, G., Gori, M., Pitino, A., Leonardis, D., Tripepi, G., & Liakopoulos, V. (2024). ROC curve analysis: a useful statistic multi-tool in the research of nephrology. International Urology and Nephrology, 56(8), 2651–2658.
• Schreiber-Gregory, D. N. (2018). Ridge regression and multicollinearity: An in-depth review. Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 13(4), 359–365.
• Sebjan, U., Tominc, P., & Sirec, K. (2017). Multiple conceptual modelling of perceived quality of in-flight airline services. Promet-Traffic&Transportation, 29(3), 311–319.
• Senaviratna, N. A. M. R., & A. Cooray, T. M. J. (2019). Diagnosing multicollinearity of logistic regression model. Asian Journal of Probability and Statistics, 5(2), 1–9.
• Song, C., Guo, J., & Zhuang, J. (2020). Analyzing passengers’ emotions following flight delays- a 2011–2019 case study on SKYTRAX comments. Journal of Air Transport Management, 89(February), 101903.
• Tjur, T. (2009). Coefficients of determination in logistic regression models - A new proposal: The coefficient of discrimination. American Statistician, 63(4), 366–372.
• Vanacore, A., Lanzotti, A., Percuoco, C., Capasso, A., & Vitolo, B. (2019). Design and analysis of comparative experiments to assess the (dis-)comfort of aircraft seating. Applied Ergonomics, 76(December 2017), 155–163.
• Vredenburgh, A. N., Zackowitz, I. B., & Vredenburgh, A. G. (2015). Air rage: What factors influence airline passenger anger? Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2015-Janua, 400–404.
• Wang, J., Zhi, J. Y., Du, Y., Xiang, Z. R., Feng, S., & Chen, J. P. (2021). A method identifying key optimisation points for aircraft seat comfort . Ergonomics, 64(3), 287–304.
• Zhao, C., Yu, S. huai, Miller, C., Ghulam, M., Li, W. hua, & Wang, L. (2019). Predicting aircraft seat comfort using an artificial neural network. Human Factors and Ergonomics In Manufacturing, 29(2), 154–162.