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This paper examines the relationship between transportation quality, customer satisfaction and profitability. Specifically, this study examines the simultaneous and asynchronous effect of quality of transportation services on customer satisfaction and financial performance and then performs the same examination in relation to the effect of customer satisfaction on financial performance. The partial least squares approach to structural equation modelling is used to examine longitudinal data from 1995 to 2018 from the US airline industry. The findings suggest that low service quality in transportation has adverse effects on customer satisfaction and financial performance, while the impact of customer satisfaction on financial performance in the US Airline transportation industry is mixed. The authors found that the impact of customer satisfaction on financial performance is significant in full-service airlines but not in low-cost airlines. Surprisingly, the authors found no significant direct relationship between transportation quality and financial performance in the US airline industry.

This study examined the factors influencing willingness-to-repurchase for each class of airline service, and integrate the constructs of service quality, satisfaction and willingness-to-repurchase which were rooted on Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB) model. The study focuses on the domestic and international arrival of passengers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja. Information was gathered from domestic and foreign passengers who had post-purchase experience and had used the airline's services more than once. The survey data were obtained concurrently from arrival passengers at two major international airports using an electronic questionnaire through random and purposive sampling techniques. The data was analysed using the ordinal logit model and structural equation model. From the 606 respondents, 524 responses were received but 489 responses were valid for data analysis and reporting and were obtained mostly from economy and business class passengers. The study found that the quality of seat pitch, allowance of 30 kg luggage permission, availability of online check-in 24 hours before the departing flight, quality of space for legroom between seats, and the quality of seats that can be converted into a fully flatbed are the major service factors influencing willingness-to-repurchase economy and business class tickets. Also, it was found that passengers' willingness to repurchase is influenced majorly by service quality, but not necessarily influenced by satisfaction. These results reflect the passengers' consciousness of COVID-19 because the study was conducted during the heat of COVID-19 pandemic. Recommendations were suggested for airline management based on each class.

Variations in customer expectations pose a challenge to service quality improvement in the airline industry. Understanding airline customers' expectations and satisfaction help service providers improve their offerings. The extant literature examines airline passengers' expectations in isolation, neglecting the overall impact of online reviews on service quality improvement. This paper systematically evaluates the airline industry's passengers' expectations and satisfaction using expectation confirmation theory (ECT) and the SERVQUAL framework. The paper analyzes online reviews to examine the relationship between airline service quality attributes and passengers' satisfaction.

The SERVQUAL framework was employed to examine the effects of customer culture, the reason for traveling, and seat type on customer's expectations and satisfaction across a large sample of airline customers.

A total of 17,726 observations were gathered from the Skytrax review website. The lowest satisfaction ratings were from passengers from the USA, Canada and India. Factors that affect perceived service performance include customer service, delays and baggage management. Empathy and reliability have the biggest impact on the perceived satisfaction of passengers.

This research increases understanding of the consumer expectations through analysis of passengers' online reviews. Results are limited to a small sample of airline industries.

This study provides airlines with valuable information to improve customer service by analyzing online reviews.

This study provides the opportunity for airline customers to gain better services when airline companies utilize the findings.

This paper offers insights into passengers' expectations and their perceived value for money in relation to seat types. Previous studies have not investigated value for money as a construct for passengers' expectations and satisfaction relative to service quality dimensions. This paper addresses this need.

This paper aims to review the conceptual background for service quality as applied to the airline industry and use data from the Air Travel Consumer Report to examine airline quality performance on such key indicators as on‐time arrival, customer complaints, denied boarding, and mishandled baggage to determine the trend in airline service performance over the past two decades.

Data collected for this study included customer complaints on flight problems, ticketing, refunds, fares, customer service, advertising, and other problems, overall carrier on‐time performance, involuntary denied boardings, and mishandled baggage. Total yearly departures by carrier were obtained from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and used to normalize the service data. Service quality rates were calculated for the industry overall and by individual carrier. The total quality rate represents the sum of the following data: the percentage of late flights, total number of consumer complaints, total number of involuntary denied boardings, and total number of mishandled baggage reports divided by total yearly departures for a particular airline. In a real sense, this rate is a measure of disquality and can be interpreted as the number of quality problems per departure.

The data show that during periods of retrenchment when airlines are reducing flight schedules due to economic downturns the level of on‐time arrival tends to improve while customer complaints, denied boardings, and mishandled baggage decline. Part of the explanation for the changes is the lack of airport and air traffic capacity to handle periods of higher traffic volume.

As a critical component of the transportation system, the ability of the airline industry to provide reliable, timely service is important. Understanding the factors that contribute to service problems can help guide airline decisions about process and government decisions about infrastructure needs.

The primary objectives of this study are to determine if consumer expectations and perceptions of airline service quality vary by nationality. The study also examines whether the relative importance attributed to service quality dimensions in domestic settings can be replicated internationally. An empirical examination of airline passengers is conducted for airlines competing on the transatlantic corridor using a survey instrument in three languages. The study is the first application of an existing model, SERVQUAL, to examine consumer expectations and perceptions in an international environment. It differs from earlier published SERVQUAL research in two significant respects; first, it applies the model internationally in a general classification of business, i.e. international airline service, rather than to individual domestic business enterprises. Second, it applies a portion of the SERVQUAL model to assess service quality by comparing the expectations and perceptions that European and US airline passengers have of both European and US airline groups.

In practice and in literature, logistics service quality is one of the key concepts in any service industry, including airlines. However, the breadth of content and the inconsistent accounts make comprehensive understanding of service quality elusive, thereby necessitating the conduct of a systematic review of the literature on service quality in the context of airlines. In doing so, this study aims to provide a clear, consistent and current overview of the literature, enabling the advancement of theory and research in service quality.

In particular, this study presents several aspects of logistics service quality based on the 52 articles reviewed published between 1993 and 2019. Content analysis was used to analyze the data in terms of key attributes of service quality from the selected articles.

Following an analysis, this study summarizes the antecedents and consequences, along with mediators and moderators, and develops a review framework of service quality.

This study provides a starting point for understanding logistics service quality in a context of airline where choice of perspective (at three different perspectives) and framing of context (where logistics interfaces with marketing function, thereby ensuring a well-functiong synthesis of marketing and service activities in the value chain) are of decisive importance. It also expands an understanding of service quality in marketing field with an integration of logistics function as well as challenging some of the conventional knowledge of the applying logistics in service-based business like the airlines. However, this paper is restricted by several limitations that must be taken into account when applying its findings such as context-specific results,cross-sectional data and recall variables.

This paper provides a clear and consistent concept, as well as a current overview of the literature, which enables advancement in theory and research. It also reveals theoretical underpinnings of the research stream and outlines future research directions. Additionally, it challenges some of the conventional knowledge of the applying logistics on service-based business such as airline which broadens the scope of our thinking and provides a foundation for future study.

The purpose of this paper is to help airlines gain a better understanding of passengers’ service concerns, identify opportunities for continuous service improvement, and then develop service benchmarking standards that can be a yardstick for the airline’s competitiveness.

This paper develops a set of target performance standards that helps airlines monitor their service delivery process, identify relative weaknesses, and take corrective actions for continuous service improvements using exploratory data analysis and competitive gap analysis.

This study reveals that a service attribute considered most important to the airline customers’ impressions of service quality are air safety. This result reflects a growing concern over potential terrorism against airlines in the wake of the September 11 incident. The authors also found that proper baggage handling, competitive airfare, and on-time arrival/departure were next most important service attributes, whereas frequent flier and code-sharing programs were least important. Furthermore, the authors discovered that airline passengers’ perceived service quality influenced their choice of airlines. That is to say, airline service quality can be an important gauge of airline market share and revenue.

The current study is limited to the evaluation of comparative service quality of airlines in the USA. Thus, this study cannot be generalized to the airline passengers’ perceived service quality in other countries or different cultural settings. Also, this paper focuses on the performance aspect of benchmarking rather than the strategic aspect of benchmarking.

With rising costs of fuel, labor, maintenance, and security, many airlines are at a crossroads where they have to decide between succumbing to restructuring pressures in a form of mergers/acquisitions and reinventing their service offerings. One viable means of reinventing airline service offerings is to learn more about what airline passengers truly value and appreciate in terms of service offerings and then figure out what it takes to win the hearts of customers and then how the airline can differentiate its service offering from those of its competitors. With this in mind, this paper develops viable service improvement strategies for the airline that can enhance its competitiveness in the struggling airline industry.

This paper is one of a few attempts to identify a list of service attributes most important to airline service quality based on the actual survey of airline passengers, and then develop a benchmark standard of airlines in the USA from a customer (passenger) perspective.

This study aimed to examine young, middle-aged and mature air-travelers’ perceptions of the quality levels of in-flight physical surroundings and service encounters, and investigated the drivers of their repurchase intentions in the low-cost airline industry.

A sample of 402 passengers on international flights was used. An ANOVA and a series of multiple-regression analyses based on Baron and Kenny’s (1986) suggestion were used.

In general, significant differences in quality attributes were identified across age groups. Additionally, the role of these quality components, perceived level of the airfare and trust in the airline were found to be decisive in low-cost airline passengers’ decision formation. Further, the mediating impact of perceived level of the airfare and trust was identified.

Research about air-travelers’ decision formation by considering their age is rare in a low-cost airline context. Results of the present study provided meaningful insights for researchers and practitioners in the airline industry.

Although the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 can be blamed for a number of problems currently plaguing the US airline industry, their effect on the service and safety quality of post‐9/11 airlines is mixed. This study places current industry quality in historical context by examining trends in both areas beginning in 1987. The findings indicate that the service quality improved among major US carriers for the period 1987‐1993 but began to deteriorate after this date, although it did not return to 1987 levels. Service quality again improves in 2001 and reaches its best level ever in 2002 as post‐9/11 changes appear to have improved on‐time performance, reduced overbooking, and lowered customer complaints. Two factors identified as important in service and safety quality, maintenance spending and load factor, were also explored. Results indicate that both service and safety quality improve as the level of maintenance spending increases.

This paper aims to investigate effects on service quality where an individual airline chooses to jointly market its services with other airlines under the umbrella of a co‐brand alliance. Concept combination theory would lead to an expectation that quality performance of individual airlines would converge when their individual brands are combined to form a co‐brand alliance. This paper seeks to review the conceptual basis for quality convergence, and test this with a study of actual convergence levels among airlines that have joined alliances, and those that have not.

The research employs a longitudinal, quantitative methodology. An index of airline service quality is constructed from a number of published sources, and this index combines technical and functional aspects of quality. The choice of components to include in the index, and their relative weighting, was informed by a panel of experts. Time series data were collected for the period 1998‐2004, and analysed using analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The study indicates that the effects of recent alliance membership on service quality for an airline are insignificant.

Other factors such as industry‐wide trends had a greater effect on airlines' level of quality than alliance membership.

Previous research into co‐brand alliances has tended to emphasise technical and financial performance metrics. This study has taken a broader perspective based on operational and customer perceived aspects of service quality. The principal finding of the paper is that variations in quality levels are accounted for more by broader industry wide phenomena, rather than the presence or otherwise of a co brand alliance. Differentiation between co‐brands may be more subtle, and based on distinctive styles of service delivery which are not typically picked up through quantitative research.