Evaluating airport and airline service quality: A structural equation modeling approach

Abstract

A new scale for assessing traveler experience in air trips is proposed. Here, passenger experience is measured through travelers' perception of service quality, considering it as a chain of services. The new scale is called air travel service quality (ATSQ). It considers three service quality stages: departure airport service, airline service, and arrival airport service. This research applies the ATSQ scale to examine service quality in domestic travels in a Colombian context. Given that traveler’s experience plays a crucial role in determining passenger satisfaction, a structural equation model was applied to examine the relationship between service quality stages, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. Adding the passengers' perception of the arrival airport to the integrated service quality measurement is considering one of the main contributions of this study. The finding of this research confirmed that all three stages of air travel service have a significant, positive effect on passenger satisfaction. The scale found in this research should provide useful information for developing effective operational and marketing strategies for the air travel market. In this way, airports and airlines could better understand how traveler’s perception of service quality may affect each choice related to which departure airport, airline, and arrival airport combination to choose from.