AIR TRAVELERS' PERCEPTION TOWARDS SERVICE QUALITY OF INDIAN DOMESTIC AIRLINES

Abstract

This study makes an attempt to measure the customer satisfaction level based on service quality as perceived by air travelers among five Indian domestic airlines. Service quality attributes included in the study are Ticket booking experience; Check-in process; Luggage handling; In-flight experience; Cabin crew; Arrival services and Complaint handling approach of domestic airlines operating in India. A questionnaire was designed with above set of attributes and responses of 120 travelers of five domestic airlines viz., Go Air, Jet Airways, Indigo, Spice Jet and Air India (Domestic) were recorded on a five point Likert scale. About 120 respondents were interviewed from different tourist destinations in the four districts of Sikkim state of India. A convenient sampling method was followed. Perceptions of only those travelers were captured who had actually undergone the experience of travelling by at least two domestic airlines. Using Kruskal-Wallis test, it was checked whether travelers perceive any significant difference between satisfaction levels among five airlines for each of the above sevem identified attributes. The domestic airline preferences of customers with respect to each of the service quality attribute were also traced during the study. It was observed that Spice Jet has scored highest preference on 'ticket booking', 'in-flight experience' and 'cabin crew' service attributes; whereas the perception of travelers towards 'check-in process', 'luggage handling', 'arrival services' and 'complaint handling' attributes of Jet Airways, was significantly different from the others. Indian customers also see the quality of services in connection with the value to money.