A Customer Satisfaction Study in an Airline Company Centered in Turkey

Abstract

Airline industry has many challenges: decreasing costs, responding changeable demand, achieving high quality requirements as well trying to maintain superior services and satisfy customer needs. Turkish aviation industry presents a remarkable growth during the recent years. Besides the strategic role of the geographical position of Turkey, when the new airport started to service in Istanbul, Turkey’s importance in the world aviation sector will increase further. Customer satisfaction is crucial to increasing the profitability of airline companies as the aviation industry grows. Turkey centered airplane companies have flight more than 120 countries and 300 cities around the world. Previous studies have investigated customers’ perception of service quality and the effect of customer satisfaction levels on their future behavior, and various strategies for achieving customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. According to J.D. Power 2017 report, customer satisfaction with airlines has been rising for the past five years. So companies should understand customer satisfaction elements well to sustain their competitive advantage. This study looks at how online, cabin, flight services, and personnel characteristics could affect customer satisfaction of an airplane company centered in Turkey. Data were collected from the more than 1400 passengers, domestic and mainly international flights. Relations in the model is tested with Structural Equation Modelling using IBM SPSS Amos package.