Abstract
This paper proposes a new scale for assessing traveler experience in air travel. 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 paper applies the ATRS scale to examine service quality in domestic travels in a Colombian context. Given that traveler’s experience plays a crucial role in determining passenger’s satisfaction, a structural equation model (SEM) 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.
Highlights
Air transportation has been one of the fastest-growing modes of transportation in recent years (Kuljanin, Paskota, & Kalić, 2018)
The results of this paper indicate that departure airport tangibles, arrival airport tangibles, and airline empathy factors are the most influential constructs in terms of traveler’s satisfaction
This research extended the understanding of traveler’s experience by exploring the elements, which influence traveler’s satisfaction from a new perspective: that of the service quality perception related to all contact points that travelers experiences during a travel
Summary
Air transportation has been one of the fastest-growing modes of transportation in recent years (Kuljanin, Paskota, & Kalić, 2018). Over the last two decades, the Colombian air transportation market has expanded considerably due to a high passenger growth rate (Díaz & Pulido, 2019). It had grown from 10.7 million passengers in 2000 to 37.8 million passengers in 2018. This study focuses on the assessment of findings from the Colombian domestic air travel sector. Air carriers and airports have focused their attention on service quality and traveler satisfaction. To assess their performance, airline, and airport marketing managers have tried to evaluate air traveler experience. Some researchers have suggested that airport service quality perception is a good predictor of airport passengers’ satisfaction. (Ming-kei & Yui-Yip, 2016; Prentice & Kadan, 2019)
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