A COMPARISON OF AIRLINE SERVICE EXPECTATIONS BETWEEN PASSENGERS OF DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS

Abstract

The air transportation industry in Turkey is developing rapidly in recent years. In paralel with this development, the number of airline companies and passengers are increasing drastically. Thus, searching and understanding the expectations of passengers in airline services are getting importance for airline companies.This study measures and compares differences in passengers’ expectations of the desired airline service quality in terms of the dimensions of relialibility, assurance, facilities, employees, flight patterns, customization and responsiveness. In this research a between-groups comparison design of data obtained in a one time measurement in the field. The number of questionnaires applied was 421 for domestic flight passengers and 400 for international flight passengers departing from different Turkish airports. Data collecting method used in the study was 5- point Likert type self-report questionnaire filled by the respondents on voluntary basis. The findings demonstrated that significant differences exist between the domestic and international flight passenger groups regarding their income level. The findings also indicated that for domestic flight passengers “assurance” was ranked as the most important service quality dimension and ‘reliability’ was ranked by international flight passengers as the most important dimension

Keywords

• Airline service, passenger expectation, air transportation

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