Hospitality in aviation: A genealogical study

Abstract

The aviation business has gone through a process of radical restructuring during recent decades. Deregulation and fierce competition from low-cost carriers have put traditional flag carriers under pressure, resulting in falling fares. In this cost-cutting process, service quality aboard has in many cases fallen at the same time as the glamorous image of aviation partly remains. This process has resulted in a number of contradictions. The purpose of this article is to conduct a genealogical investigation of hospitality in aviation, in order to explain how the performance and image of hospitality have developed over time, and to thereby shed some light on contemporary developments. It is argued that the service culture of passenger aviation has two historical roots, both of which developed in distinct social and institutional settings. Traditional scheduled aviation developed out of first-class rail service and marine traditions coming from the passenger steamliners of the early twentieth century. Low-cost aviation on the other hand developed out of the charter industry, which in turn goes back to tour operators using buses and coaches. These two traditions have shaped different sets of expectations and relations to service aboard an aircraft. This historic perspective builds on a combination of social, geographic, economic, institutional and technological factors influencing the development of hospitality in aviation.