Stated in-flight service preferences for short to medium-haul air trips

Abstract

This contribution adds recent empirical findings on airline passengers' preference structures, putting emphasis on the European short and medium-range leisure flight market. The conducted choice experiments specifically tackled the trade-off between the catering service levels and possible variations of air fares. Based on a segmentation of the continental leisure air market, ternary and binary choice situations – with/without consideration of the status quo offering - were created. Choice-based conjoint measurement and discrete choice analysis were deployed as evaluation techniques. The underlying data was generated by two waves of stated preference surveys of slightly varying questionnaire design. The results include new empirical evidence on part-worths and willingness-to-pay of airline passengers; analysis of onboard sales data and extensive choice experiments; choice-based conjoint measurement and discrete choice analysis; and a new compensatory choice model for the up-selling probability of in-flight services.