an emprirical investigation into factors affecting service quality among indian airline service...

7/30/2019 An Emprirical Investigation Into Factors Affecting Service Quality Among Indian Airline Service Providers

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International Journal of Management

Volume 1 Issue 1 May 2010 pp.71 - 87

http://iaeme.com/ijm.html

AN EMPRIRICAL INVESTIGATION INTO FACTORS AFFECTING

SERVICE QUALITY AMONG INDIAN AIRLINE SERVICE PROVIDERS

J. Joseph Francis1, Dr S. Balasubramanian

2

Abstract

The Indian airline industry exists in an intensely competitive market. India has a

well-developed and large civil aviation network. There are 122 airports in the country,

controlled by the Airports Authority of India, of which 11 are international airports. The

air services of the country were liberalised in 1994 through a move towards an open-skies

policy of the Government. The Indian Airline market is characterised as a hugely

potential and under penetrated market.

Service quality has received a great deal of attention from both academicians and

practitioners. The firm's ability to create and sustain competitive advantage depends upon

the high level of service quality provided by the service provider.Given the context of huge losses faced by Indian Airline services, it is imperative

for us to study the service quality levels of these companies. The study explores the

various constructs that are critical to service quality among the Indian Airline service

providers as perceived by the Passengers.

1Lecturer, School Of management, VLB Janakiammal College of Engineering and

Technology, Kovaipudur, Coimbatore 641 042 and Part time Research Scholar, AnnaUniversity Coimbatore, Coimbatore E-mail: [email protected], Cell No: 98429

84344

2Former Director IPR, Anna University Coimbatore, Coimbatore - 47,

E-mail: [email protected] Cell No: 94422 56272

I J M

I A E M


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A sample of 200 respondents were selected based on convenience sampling and the

questionnaire was distributed to them. The Samples are those using the Coimbatore

Airport. The researches felt that the users of the Coimbatore Airport would not only be

those from Coimbatore but from across the country and hence there was not a need to go

the various cities per se. The questionnaire designed was the survey instrument. The

questionnaire comprised of 12 sections constituting the various dimension of Service

Quality among the Indian Airline service providers. From the data analysis, it was clear

that the Price, Politeness of crew members, Consistency between communication and

experience, Check in of luggage and convenience of flight- timings are the top five

factors of service quality as perceived by the passengers. It was inferred that the

passenger perceives service quality as a combination of the three dimensions namely

physical, interaction and corporate and all the three dimensions have to be given equal

priority by the Indian Airline service providers.

Key words: Airlines, Service Quality, Service providers, passenger.

1.0 IntroductionFew inventions have changed how people live and experience the world as much

as the invention of the airplane. The airline industry exists in an intensely competitive

market. In recent years, there has been an industry-wide shakedown, which will have far-

reaching effects on the industry's trend towards expanding domestic and international

services. In the past, the airline industry was at least partly government owned. This is

still true in many countries. Almost all airlines have shown losses in the recent past and

things dont look to improve unless some revolutionary changes are initiated by the

government as well as by the airlines owners. Even as the slowdown in the industry and

rising losses have made equity investment currently impossible, Indian carriers cash flow

has been maintained through large scale loans from financial institutions. This has made


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the Indian Airline service providers as some of the most over leveraged companies in the

world.

India has a well-developed and large civil aviation network. There are 122 airports

in the country, controlled by the Airports Authority of India, of which 11 are international

airports. The air services of the country were liberalised in 1994 through a move towards

an open-skies policy of the Government. Civil aviation sector in India has been badly hit

in recent times by high Aviation Turbine Fuel prices which made the ticket prices soar

leading to a fall in demand.

The Indian Airline market is characterised as a hugely potential and under

penetrated market. The total passenger market in India is around 50 million. The

passenger trip per annum of India is 0.05, while the same for US is 2.02. The above figure

explains the under penetration of the Indian Airlines market. The Indian Domestic market

is forecasted to grow at 12 % annually. IATA projects the growth of the Indian Airline

market at 8.8 % annually for the next 10 years. The Indian Government has introduced

the open sky policy. The Government has introduced deregulations in various spheres of

the Aviation Industry. A major change has been the focus of the Government in bringing

investments in the industry. FDI limits have been increased to 49 % in airlines and even

up to 100 % in airports.

The socio cultural factors are also favourable for Indian airline Industry.

India has a huge growing middle class, which aspires to travel by air. There is increase

the leisure travel segment within the country. The foreign tourist arrival in India has been

steadily increasing. The technological advancements and privatisation of green field

airports are adding to the increasing numbers of passengers. Also, the low cost carriers

are playing a vital role increasing the market. The business model of low cost carriers are

proving to be successful and thereby increasing the Airline market. Currently, there is a

trend of consolidation in the Airline industry.


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Even as the slowdown in the industry and rising losses have made equity

investment currently impossible, Indian carriers cash flow has been maintained through

large scale loans from financial institutions.

Service quality has received a great deal of attention from both academicians and

practitioners. In the services marketing literature service quality is defined as the overall

assessment of a service by the customers. Lehtinen (1982) conceptualized service quality

as a three dimensional construct viz. "physical", "interactive" and "corporate." Physical

quality is the quality dimension which originates from the physical elements of service

like physical product and physical support. Interactive quality indicates the interaction

between the customer and the service organization. And corporate quality is symbolic in

nature and indicates the perception of customers about the image of the organization. The

firm's ability to create and sustain competitive advantage depends upon the high level of

service quality provided by the service provider. They defined perceived service quality

as the extent to which a firm serves the needs of its customers successfully.

Given the context of huge losses faced by Indian Airline services, it is imperative

for us to study the service quality levels of these companies. The study explores the

various constructs that are critical to service quality among the Indian Airline service

providers as perceived by the Passengers.

2.0 Review of Literature

2.1 Service Quality: Like price, quality is a critical dimension of a firms competitive

strategy (Porter, 1980).Service quality has received a great deal of attention from both

academicians and practitioners. In the services marketing literature service quality is

defined as the overall assessment of a service by the customers. Parasuraman et al.

defined perceived service quality as "global judgment, or attitude, relating to the

superiority of the service". Parasuraman et al. (1985) conceptualized service quality as

perceptions resulting from the comparison of customer expectations and actual service

performance.


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One of the most accepted facts is that service quality in most cases depends on a number

of factors or aspects (Berry, Zeithaml and Parasuraman, 1985; Johnston and Lyth, 1991;

Sasser, Olsen and Wyckoff, 1978; Fitzgerald, Johnston, Brignalls, Silvestro and Voss,

1991; Collier, 1991; Juran, Gryna, Frank and Bingham, 1988. Parasuraman, Zeithaml and

Berry (1985) identified ten determinants: reliability, responsiveness, competence, access,

courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding/knowing the consumer, and

tangibles (Berry, Zeithaml and Parasuraman, 1985). Later these were reduced to five:

tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, empathy and assurance (Parsuraman, Zeithaml and

Berry, 1988). Grnroos (1988) added a sixth dimension recovery to these five. This refers

to having a clear-cut strategy for removing the unwanted elements of service offer to the

satisfaction of the consumer.

All have not universally accepted these dimensions. Various researchers have

reported that their research do not support these dimensions. Finn and Lamb (1991)

researching on retailing negated the Parasuraman et al.s claim that their instrument is

applicable to a wide range of services. They concluded that the five dimensions are

insufficient to measure service quality in the retail setting. Similarly, Cronin and Taylor

(1992), researching for services like banks, dry-cleaning, etc. found little support for

Berry et al.s (1985) five dimensions. They did not have any research sample that

confirmed Parasuramans five dimensional construct of service quality. Silvestro and

Johnston (1989) and Fitzgerald et al. (1991) in their studies enlarged Parasuraman et al.s

efforts by redefining some of the previous dimensions and enlarging this list to as many

as 15 factors. They caution against relying exclusively on the market (or consumers) to

determine all the key attributes of service quality. Thus, they maintain that due attention

to the specific tasks of operations is also desirable. Among others, Collier (1991)

identifies the following service quality attributes: accuracy, volume and activity,

convenience, time-oriented responsiveness, reliability, professionalism and competence,

friendliness and consumer empathy, atmosphere and aesthetics, security and safety,

productivity and efficiency, overall market and performance indicators, technology, and


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price/value/cost/relationships. Earlier, Juran et. al. (1988) identified three aspects of

services that should be measured: timeliness, consumer well being, and continuity of

services. Armistead (1990) classified the service dimensions as soft and firm. The

style (attitude of staff, accessibility of staff, and ambience), steering (the degree to which

customers feel in control of their own destiny) and safety (trust, security and

confidentiality) are the soft dimensions whereas; timeliness, consumer well being, and

continuity of services. Armistead (1990) classified the service dimensions as soft and

firm. The style (attitude of staff, accessibility of staff, and ambience),

steering (the degree to which customers feel in control of their own destiny) and safety

(trust, security and confidentiality) are the soft dimensions whereas; time (availability,

responsiveness and waiting), fault freeness (in physical good, intangible activities and

information) and flexibility (recovery, customization and augmented services) are the

firm dimensions.

They further pointed out that service quality perceptions are not solely the

outcomes of service but it also involves the evaluation of the service delivery process by

the customers. Lehtinen (1982) conceptualized service quality as a three dimensional

construct viz. "physical", "interactive" and "corporate." Physical quality is the quality

dimension which originates from the physical elements of service like physical product

and physical support. Interactive quality indicates the interaction between the customer

and the service organization. And corporate quality is symbolic in nature and indicates

the perception of customers about the image of the organization. Garvin (1988) provided

a comprehensive definition of service quality comprising of the attributes viz.

performance, features, conformance, reliability, durability, aesthetics, serviceability and

customers' perceived quality. Asubonteng et al. (1996; p.64) defined service quality as

"the difference between the customers' expectations for service performance prior to the

service encounter and their perceptions of the service received." Yoo and Park (2007)

state that the firm's ability to create and sustain competitive advantage depends upon the

high level of service quality provided by the service provider. They defined perceived


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service quality as the extent to which a firm serves the needs of its customers

successfully. Again, Dabholkar et al. (2000) considered service quality as a set of

different sub-dimensions like reliability and responsiveness which form the antecedents

to customer satisfaction.

SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al. 1988) emerged as an instrument to measure

service quality consisting of the five dimensions of service quality viz. reliability,

tangibility, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. But it had its own share of criticisms

because it was based on the difference between the expectations and performance. Its

reliability and validity has been questioned by many researchers (Carman 1990; Cronin

and Taylor 1992; Strandvik and Lijander 1994; Babakaus and Boiler 1992). Thus,

service quality is conceptualized both as a one dimensional and a multidimensional

construct in the literature. Furthermore, there is strong evidence in the literature for

service quality being an antecedent of customer satisfaction.

2.2 Passenger satisfaction and service quality in Airline Services

Matrin Dresner and Kefeng Xu ( 1995 ) of University of Maryland have studied the

relationship between customer service, customer satisfaction and corporate performancein services sector. This study examines the effect of three customer service variables on

customer satisfaction and in turn on profitability for U.S. airlines, a service sector

industry. The airline industry was chosen for the study because of the availability of an

excellent stream of Government-collected data on customer service, customer

satisfaction, and corporate performance. Air transportation data are used to test the

significance of both links in the customer service to customer satisfaction and to

corporate performance relationship. In addition, the empirical results from the study are

used to quantify the effect of increasing customer service levels on the level of customer

satisfaction and on profitability in the airline industry.

With the growth of the Airline services around the world, a significant body of

literature has emerged over the past several years. Diah Natalisa and Budiarto Subroto


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have studied the effects of management commitment on service quality to Increase

customer satisfaction of domestic Airlines in Indonesia. The results showed that a

majority of the customers were satisfied with the services provided. The five dimensions

of service quality positively affected the customers level of confidence and among

those dimensions; assurance has the strongest effect on the level of customers

satisfaction. The customers level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction were not differentiated

by price and personal variables, but rather by other variables like 1) the customer

perception of service quality , 2) the appropriation between the service quality and the

external communication, and 3) the situational variable. The situational variable proved to

be the differentiating variable in the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction for business

segment customers.

Claire Dennett, Elizabeth M Inseon, Grahaivi J Stone and Mark Colgate studied

the role of differentiation in increasing satisfaction of pre-bookable services in the

chartered Airline Industry. Their focus was to assess the impact of introduction of an

innovation in the charter airline industry. In particular they analysed whether customers'

perceptions of satisfaction and behavioural intentions in terms of repurchase are

significantly higher amongst those consumers who availed themselves of newly

introduced pre-bookable chartered airline services.. The findings highlight that although

this innovation can increase satisfaction and repurchase intentions its potential has not

been maximised.

3.0 Research Methodology

The Research design adopted for the survey was Descriptive research as the

researcher aims to study the below mentioned objectives.

3.1 Objective

The following research objectives are postulated:

1) To determine the significant factors that contribute towards service quality asperceived by the passengers


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2) To provide suitable recommendations to the Airline service providers based onthe factors of service quality identified.

3.2 Sampling Procedure

A sample of 200 respondents were selected based on convenience sampling and

the questionnaire distributed to them. The Samples are those using the Coimbatore

Airport. The researches felt that the users of the Coimbatore Airport would not only be

those from Coimbatore but from across the country and hence there was not a need to go

the various cities per se.

3.3 Research instrument

The questionnaire designed was the survey instrument. The questionnaire was

comprised of 12 sections namely Flight Timings, Flight Delay, Flight Connection,

Frequent flyer programme, Cabin baggage, Baggage, Crew members, Food, Seating

arrangement, Booking, Pre-flight and Miscellaneous constituting the various dimension

of Service Quality among the Indian Airline service providers. Statements related to all

the factors identified are used to develop a Likert scale, asking respondents to rate the

factors on a five point scale consisting of Strongly agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree,Strongly Disagree.

The various factors identified were as follows

Table 1.0 Various service quality factors identified

S. No Factors

I Flight timings

1 Convenience of timings

2 On time take off

3 On time landing

II Flight Delay

4 providing food


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5 Providing rooms / accommodation

6 Providing transportation

7 Providing message at the airport regarding delay

III Flight connection

8 Timings

9 Availability of timings

10 Baggage

11 Guidance of airline staff at interchange point

IV Frequent flyer programme

12 Card

13 Implementation

14 Tracking

15 Communication

16 Reimbursement

V Cabin baggage

17 Missing

18 Tracking

VI Baggage19 check in

20 Misplaced

21 How to track

VII Crew members

22 Approach

23 Serving

24 Vernacular language

25 Guiding to seat

26 Instruction

27 Pilot communication regarding flight take off

28 Pilot communication regarding regarding


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environment details

VIII Seating arrangement

29 Seat leg room

30 Seating arrangement

31 Size of seat

32 Preflight Wheel chair

33 Tele check in

IX Food

34 Type of food35 How the food is served

36 Taste of the food

37 Packaging of the food

38 Time of delivery of food

39 Non delivery of food

40 Price of food

X Booking

41 Price

42 Ease of booking

43 Cancellation of flight

44 Website design

45 Ticket cancellation methods

XI Pre flight

46 Arrangement at the Airport

47 Guidance at the airport

48 Check-in facilities

XII Miscellaneous

49 Complimentary items

50 Image of the airline


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51 Consistency in communication

52 Airline magazine

53 Advertising within the airline

3.4 Reliability of the research instrument

The reliability of the various factors is tested using the Cronbach Alpha method of

validity. Reliability test was conducted for determining the proportion of systematic

variation in a scale that assesses reliability. This is done by determining the association

between scores obtained from different administrations of scale. If the association is high,

the scale yields consistent results and therefore reliable (Malhotra 1999). In this survey,

Cronbach Alpha was used to test the internal consistency for all items under respective

variables. The table shows that all factors in the variables form a single strongly

consistent and conceptual construct. The value recorded for alpha for all four variables

were under the acceptable range = 0.7 (Nunnally 1978).

Table 2.0 Cronbach Alpha values for each factor

S. No Factors No ofstatements

CronbachAlpha

I Flight timings 3 0.856

II Flight Delay 4 0.826

III Flight connection 4 0.828

IV Frequent flyer

programme

5 0.750

V Cabin baggage 2 0.846

VI Baggage 3 0.896

VII Crew members 6 0.788

VIII Seating arrangement 5 0.952

IX Food 7 0.948


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X Booking 5 0.878

XI Pre flight 3 0.786

XII Miscellaneous 5 0.745

3.5 Data Analysis

The scores from the Likert scale for various factors are calculated. The below table

gives details of the mean score and the standard deviation for the various service quality

factors.

Table 3.0 Factors with the highest mean scores from the Likert Scale

S.No

Factors Mean StandardDeviation

1 Convenience of flight timings 4.56 1.72

2 On time take off of flights 4.10 1.2

3 On time landing of flights 3.80 0.8

4 providing food during flight delays 3.40 1.3

5 Providing rooms / accommodation during

flight delays

3.50 1.4

6 Guidance of airline staff at interchange point

during flight connection

4.24 1.5

7 Communication regarding the frequent flyer

programme

3.70 0.9

8 check in of luggage 4.60 1.3

9 Handling of misplaced luggage 3.84 1.4

10 Politeness of the crew members 4.70 1.3

11 Time of delivery of food 3.90 1.9

12 Price 4.78 0.9

13 Ease of booking through the company website 4.0 1.3


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14 Check-in facilities 4.2 1.9

15 Image of the airline 4.4 0.8

16 Consistency between communication and

experience

4.64 1.9

3.4 Findings

The research identifies the factors contributing to service quality as perceived by

the customers of Indian Airline service providers. The ranking of the service quality

factors as perceived by the passengers have been identified as follows

Table 4.0 Ranking of service quality factors as perceived by passengersRanks Factors

I Price

II Politeness of the crew members

III Consistency between communication and

experience

IV check in of luggage

V Convenience of flight timings

VI Image of the airline

VII Guidance of airline staff at interchange point

during flight connection

VIII Check-in facilities

IX On time take off of flights

X Ease of booking through the company

website

XI Time of delivery of food

XII Handling of misplaced luggage

XIII On time landing of flights


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XIV Communication regarding the frequent flyer

programme

XV Providing rooms / accommodation during

flight delays

XVI providing food during flight delays

From the above ranking, it is clear that the Price, Politeness of crew members,

Consistency between communication and experience, Check in of luggage and

convenience of flight- timings are the top five factors of service quality as perceived by

the passengers. It is clear from the above findings that the passenger perceives service

quality as a combination of the three dimensions namely physical, interaction and

corporate and all the three dimensions have to be given equal priority by the Indian

Airline service providers.

4.0 Conclusions

The research has identified the key factors contributing to service quality as

perceived by the passengers. It is now up to the Indian Airline service providers toconcentrate on these key factors of service quality so as to have an enhanced passenger

satisfaction. Enhanced passenger satisfaction will result in loyalty, willingness to pay a

premium and willingness to recommend the service to others. These surely will result in

better financial performance for the airlines.

5.0 Future scope and limitation

This research has provided insights into various factors that customers consider

important while evaluating the Service Quality of Indian Airline service providers.

However it does have certain limitations, which are discussed below.

The sample size is small due to time and cost constraints, which may not be

suitable to conclude the generalization of this research survey. The data is proposed to be


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collected from the customers using the Coimbatore Airport. The research considers the

customers as a homogenous group, which may not be the case. Hence there is a scope for

further research based on segmenting of the customers. Further study can explore the

factors contributing to service quality as perceived by the airline companies. The same

can be compared with the factors as perceived by the customers. This can be used to

identify the service gap, if any

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