Examining Airline Service Quality from a Process Perspective

Examining airline service quality from a process perspective Fang-Yuan Chena,b, , Yu-Hern Changa

aDepartment of Transportation and Communication Management Science, National Cheng Kung University, 1, University Road, Tainan 701, Taiwan bChina Institute of Technology, 245, Academia Road. Sec. 3, Nankang, Taipei 115, Taiwan

Abstract

Airline service is composed of a set of processes. Passengers may have distinct expectations at different stages of the service chain. In this study, air travel was divided into ground and in-flight service stages. We first examined the gap between passengers’ service expectations and actual service received and the gaps associated with passenger service expectations and the perceptions of these expectations by frontline managers and employees of a Taiwanese airline. Next, importance–performance analysis was used to construct service attribute evaluation maps to identify areas for improvement. Results revealed that these gaps did exist and passengers were more concerned about the responsiveness and assurance dimensions from airline frontline staff. The tangibles dimension was considered more important when evaluating in-flight service quality than when evaluating ground service quality. r 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction

In practice, most airlines measure passenger percep- tions of their service offerings to understand the company’s performance levels without clear knowledge of passenger expectations for service. Lack of under- standing or misunderstanding such expectations could pose serious problems in resource allocation decisions. Therefore, it is imperative for airline management to determine what their customers want and do not want. Parasuraman et al. (1985) developed a gap framework that defined service quality as the degree and direction of discrepancy between the customers’ expectations and perceptions. Five gaps were identified when measuring overall service quality. Among the gaps, the first gap arises when the customers’ expectation for service and the management’s perceptions of these expectations differ. Because airline service is characterized by extensive interactions between service providers and passengers, the role of frontline employees in delivery cannot be overemphasized. Yet, little work has been done to investigate discrepancies between passengers’ expectations and the perceptions of these expectations by frontline airline employees.