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A British Airways flight crew arrives after a long flight from London to Chicago to find their hotel rooms are not ready for check-in. The front-desk agents tell them that the hotel is overbooked. The flight crew is asked to wait in the hotel lobby for more than one and a half hours while housekeepers prepare their rooms. Upon returning to London, the pilot complains to British Airways. What should the hotel have done differently to avoid complaints?

Drawing upon the existing theoretical and empirical sourced knowledge of aesthetic labour and gender, this paper aims to explore the exploitation of women’s aesthetic labour in the Chinese airline industry and the underlying causes from a contextual point of view.

This qualitative study has emerged from a broader research project which aimed to explore women’s experiences of work-family conflict and their career aspirations in the Chinese airline industry in which aesthetic labour was prevalent as a significant issue during semi-structured interviews with female employees and HR/line management. Thus, the study draws upon interview data focusing on recruitment and selection of flight attendants in three Chinese airlines. This is complemented by secondary sources of data from Chinese television programmes and job advertisements.

This study reveals that aesthetics is both gendered and context-bound. It exposes that aesthetic labour in Chinese airlines is demanded from women but not men. It highlights that gendered aesthetic labour is continuously shaped by four influential contextual issues – legislation, labour market practices, national culture and airline management practices.

By uncovering the dynamic interconnectedness of gender and aesthetics and illustrating the exploitation of women’s aesthetic labour for commercial gains in Chinese airlines, this paper contributes to the understanding of the gendered aesthetics in the airline industry. It also offers new insights into the theory of aesthetic labour by locating it in a context that differs significantly from other socio-cultural contexts.

Airlines play a significant role in the international tourism system, yet research on airlines, notably air crew, is scant. Given the frequency with which air crew travel to destinations, understanding of their memories and experiences can have significant insights for destination marketing and management. Destination marketers could look at using air crew as marketing mediums or as potential customers. This study aims to understand the memories and experiences of air crew in destinations and the factors that influence them.

A mixed methods survey was designed and distributed to 236 air crew of a Middle Eastern airline to explore what they remembered of destinations they visited what helped and hindered their ability to remember. The survey also assessed participants self-reported degree of mindfulness.

Results suggested that air crew determined themselves as mindful and had strong memories of the destination. Several notable hindrances were reported relating to their job; fatigue, short layovers and number of flights.

The main limitation of the study is the relatively limited depth with which participants described their experiences. The results from the study add insight to tourism businesses and governments for considering air crew or leveraging air crew as marketing mediums. The generalisability and applicability of mindfulness in other contexts have been offered.

Little research has explored the experiences or memories of air crew nor the relation of mindfulness to service providers. This research is among the first to address this gap to add theoretical and practical insight to this area.

Little empirical research has examined the role of culture on the internal marketing-employee satisfaction (ES) relationship, and even fewer studies focus on this subject in the airline sector. This paper aims to assess whether culture moderates the contribution of internal marketing to the satisfaction of employees from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) airlines.

The investigation is conducted via a structured questionnaire with 310 cabin crew members who work at three GCC airlines. Multi-group analysis was used within SmartPLS 3.0 to measure whether the impact of internal marketing on ES is moderated by cultural congruence.

The results reveal the practice of internal marketing contributes to ES in GCC airlines, while cultural congruence moderates the direct relationship between internal marketing and the satisfaction of airlines’ employees. The results indicate that airlines need to satisfy the cultural needs of employees to increase their satisfaction for successful internal marketing practice.

This study contributes towards assessing the moderation effects of cultural congruence on internal marketing practice in the airline sector. It contributes to the current literature on aviation research, as well as specific managerial implications for the airlines and managers to achieve higher competitiveness.

文化一致性是否会影响企业内部营销活动与员工满意度二者之间的关系？目前在这方面的研究还很稀缺, 而聚焦于航空领域的这一主题的研究更是少之又少。本研究以海湾合作委员会的航空公司为例, 旨在分析文化一致性因素能否调节企业内部营销活动对员工满意度的影响力。

本研究对三家海湾合作委员会的航空公司共计310名的空服人员展开了问卷调查。通过运用SmartPLS 3.0 软件的多群组分析方法来具体评估航空公司的内部营销活动对其员工满意度的影响是否会被文化一致性因素所调节。

研究结果显示, 在海湾合作委员会航空公司中, 内部营销活动的实施有助于员工满意度的提升；同时文化一致性因素可以调节航空公司的内部营销活动对其员工满意度的影响。该结果表明, 为了获得成功的内部营销实践, 航空公司需要满足员工的不同文化需求, 以期提高员工的满意度.

本研究聚焦于分析文化一致性对航空公司内部营销实践的调节效应。其不仅是对当前航空研究领域文献的补充, 同时也能够为航空公司及其管理者提供具体的管理方法, 从而获得更多的竞争优势。

el papel de la cultura en la relación de satisfacción de los empleados y el marketing interno ha sido examinada en pocas investigaciones empíricas, e incluso menos estudios se centran en este tema en el sector de las aerolíneas. Este documento tiene como objetivo evaluar si la cultura modera la contribución del marketing interno a la satisfacción de los empleados de las aerolíneas del Consejo de Cooperación del Golfo (CCG).

la investigación se real a través de un cuestionario estructurado con 310 miembros de la tripulación de cabina que trabajan en tres aerolíneas del CCG. El análisis de grupo múltiple se realizó con SmartPLS 3.0 para medir si el impacto del marketing interno en la satisfacción de los empleados es moderado por la congruencia cultural.

los resultados revelan que la práctica del marketing interno contribuye a la satisfacción de los empleados en las aerolíneas del CCG, mientras que la congruencia cultural modera la relación directa entre el marketing interno y la satisfacción de los empleados de las aerolíneas. Los resultados indican que las aerolíneas necesitan satisfacer las necesidades culturales de los empleados para aumentar su satisfacción por los logros del marketing interno.

este estudio contribuye a evaluar los efectos de moderación de la congruencia cultural en la práctica del marketing interno en el sector de las aerolíneas. Contribuye a la literatura actual sobre investigación de aviación, así como indicadores de las consecuencias específicas de gestión de personal para que las aerolíneas y los directivos logren una mayor competitividad.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the evaluation of cabin crew food safety training using the Kirkpatrick model.

Using a snowballing technique, 26 cabin crew, managers, supervisors and trainers participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Summative content analysis was used to evaluate the data.

In total, 26 respondents from 20 international airlines participated in the study. All respondents agreed that evaluating cabin crew food safety/hygiene issues is important in relation to in-flight food handling; for example, “Training evaluation helps in the improvement of the future training”; “We have an end of course feedback form, either done electronically or on paper and that looks at how the delegates felt the training went, if they came away learning something new, if the environment for learning was right, all sorts of things; the questionnaire is quite comprehensive”; and “Every trainee is given a feedback form to complete”. However, significant failures in food safety training and its evaluation were identified.

The evaluation of cabin crew food safety training shows that it is ineffective in some aspects, including learning achieved and behavioural change, and these can directly impact on the implementation of food safety practices. Evaluation failures may be due to the lack of available time in relation to other cabin crew roles. Further research may consider using a larger sample size, evaluating training effectiveness using social cognition models and assessments of airline and cabin crew food safety culture.

This is the first study that evaluates cabin crew food safety training using the Kirkpatrick model. The findings provide an understanding of the current evaluation of cabin crew food safety training and can be used by airlines for improving and developing effective future food safety training programmes. This, in turn, may reduce the risk of passenger and crew foodborne disease.

The concept and practice of e-services has become essential in business transactions. Yet there are still many organizations that have not developed e-services optimally. This is especially relevant in the context of Indonesian Airline companies. Therefore, many airline customers in Indonesia are still in doubt about it, or even do not use it. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for e-services adoption and empirically examines the factors influencing the airlines customers in Indonesia in using e-services offered by the Indonesian airline companies. Taking six Indonesian airline companies as a case example, the study investigated the antecedents of e-services usage of Indonesian airlines. This study further examined the impacts of motivation on customers in using e-services in the Indonesian context. Another important aim of this study was to investigate how ages, experiences and geographical areas moderate effects of e-services usage.

The study adopts a positivist research paradigm with a two-phase sequential mixed method design involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. An initial research model was first developed based on an extensive literature review, by combining acceptance and use of information technology theories, expectancy theory and the inter-organizational system motivation models. A qualitative field study via semi-structured interviews was then conducted to explore the present state among 15 respondents. The results of the interviews were analysed using content analysis yielding the final model of e-services usage. Eighteen antecedent factors hypotheses and three moderating factors hypotheses and 52-item questionnaire were developed. A focus group discussion of five respondents and a pilot study of 59 respondents resulted in final version of the questionnaire.

In the second phase, the main survey was conducted nationally to collect the research data among Indonesian airline customers who had already used Indonesian airline e-services. A total of 819 valid questionnaires were obtained. The data was then analysed using a partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique to produce the contributions of links in the e-services model (22% of all the variances in e-services usage, 37.8% in intention to use, 46.6% in motivation, 39.2% in outcome expectancy, and 37.7% in effort expectancy). Meanwhile, path coefficients and t-values demonstrated various different influences of antecedent factors towards e-services usage. Additionally, a multi-group analysis based on PLS is employed with mixed results. In the final findings, 14 hypotheses were supported and 7 hypotheses were not supported.

The major findings of this study have confirmed that motivation has the strongest contribution in e-services usage. In addition, motivation affects e-services usage both directly and indirectly through intention-to-use. This study provides contributions to the existing knowledge of e-services models, and practical applications of IT usage. Most importantly, an understanding of antecedents of e-services adoption will provide guidelines for stakeholders in developing better e-services and strategies in order to promote and encourage more customers to use e-services. Finally, the accomplishment of this study can be expanded through possible adaptations in other industries and other geographical contexts.

The study aimed to investigate the impact of customer misbehaviors on airline in-flight customer contact personnel. A theoretical framework was proposed to test the meditating role of role stress and emotional labor in the relationship between consumer misbehaviors and emotional exhaustion.

In all, 336 cabin crew members employed by international airline companies participated in the study. The hypothesized model was tested using structural equation modeling with AMOS 20.0.

The results provide evidence that customer misbehaviors relate positively to employee role stress, emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. Moreover, role stress and emotional labor play important roles in enhancing the impacts of customer misbehaviors and thereby influence employee emotional exhaustion.

The findings potentially impact on employers both within and beyond the airline industry by demonstrating how frontline employees can be provided with support to reduce stress or exhaustion, leading ultimately to increased satisfaction.

This study has provided deeper theoretical insights into customer misbehaviors and their effects on employee role stress, emotional labor and emotional exhaustion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the value of improvisation training, as used in schools of acting, in preparing front‐stage service employees perform their roles when interacting with customers as cabin crew in Aer Arann, a regional Irish airline.

To discern the relevance and impact of improvisation training, a case study methodology was employed. The subjects of the investigation were seven recently hired cabin crew personnel for Aer Arann. Data for the case study were collected from the new hires at three different times.

The study shows that participants both enjoyed the improvisation training and found it to be very valuable as preparation for their roles in the airline. A key finding was that the new hires strongly recommended that improvisation training be incorporated into the airline's regular induction training programme. Specifically, participants felt the improvisation training improved their confidence, effectiveness, ability to adapt, spontaneity and comfort in successfully handling unique situations.

As with many case studies, the study presented here focuses on a single company for its data generation. Further, because of the realities of commercial life, the subject pool is quite small, i.e. due to the demands of their position, only seven new hires were available for the 12 hours needed to conduct the training, as well as the subsequent assessment activities. Nevertheless, the case study enabled the authors to gain meaningful insights into the utilisation of improvisation training in a real‐world setting.

The research makes several key contributions. First, it links theory and practice by demonstrating in a real world context the efficacy of framing service as theatre. Second, based on the service theatre literature, the paper details the utility of improvisation training as a means of preparing front‐stage service employees for the rigours of their jobs. Finally, the research presents new, empirically based insights regarding the value and contribution of improvisation training in the services sector.

The purpose of this paper is to carry out a comprehensive review for state-of-the-art works in disruption risk management of express logistics mainly supported by air-transportation. The authors aim to suggest some new research directions and insights for express logistics practitioners to develop more robust planning in air-transportation.

The authors mainly confined the research to papers published over the last two decades. The search process was conducted in two dimensions: horizontal and vertical. In the horizontal dimension, attention was paid to the evolution of disruption management across the timeline. In the vertical dimension, different foci and strategies of disruption management are employed to distinguish each article. Three keywords were used in the full text query: “Disruption management”, “Air transportation”, and “Airline Operations” in all database searches listed above. Duplications due to database overlap, articles other than those from academic journals, and papers in languages other than English were discarded.

A total of 98 articles were studied. The authors categorized the papers into two broad categories: Reactive Recovery, and Proactive Planning. In addition, based on the problem characteristics and their application scenarios, a total of 11 sub-categories in reactive recovery and nine sub-categories in proactive planning were further identified. From the analysis, the authors identified some new categories in the air-transportation recovery. In addition, by analyzing the papers in robust planning, according to the problem characteristics and the state-of-the-art research in recovery problems, the authors proposed four new research directions to enhance the reliability and robustness of air-transportation express logistics.

This study provided a comprehensive and feasible taxonomy of disruption risk management. The classification scheme was based on the problem characteristics and the application scenarios, rather than the algorithms. One advantage of this scheme is that it enables an in-depth classification of the problem, that is, sub-categories of each class can be revealed, which provides a much wider and clearer horizon to the scientific progress in this area. This helps researchers to reveal the problem’s nature and to identify the future directions more systematically. The suggestions for future research directions also point out some critical research gaps and opportunities.

This study summarized various reasons which account for the disruption in air-transportation. In addition, the authors suggested various considerations for express logistics practitioners to enhance logistics network reliability and efficiency.

There are various classification schemes in the literature to categorize disruption management. Using different algorithms (e.g. exact algorithm, heuristics, meta-heuristics) and distinct characteristics of the problem elements (e.g. aircraft, crew, passengers, etc.) are the most common schemes in previous efforts to produce a disruption management classification scheme. However, the authors herein attempted to focus on the problem nature and the application perspective of disruption management. The classification scheme is hence novel and significant.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) is internationally recognized as one of the world’s leading carriers. This article details the results of a series of in‐depth interviews with SIA’s senior management on their views on what made SIA a service champion, and what it will take to maintain its lead in the industry. Excerpts from there interviews were broadly organized into four sections. They are: “SIA’s perspective of service excellence and key challenges”; “Understanding customers and anticipating their needs”; “Training and motivating the front line”; and “Managing with an eye for detail and profits”. The interviews show what SIA’s senior management sees as their key drivers of service excellence. The drivers are then related to key frameworks and models from the services marketing/management literature. Implications for current and aspiring service champions are derived.