Investigation the Effect of Airline Service Quality on Passenger’s Satisfaction and Loyalty in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The service sector has grown to be an integral part of Sri Lanka’s economy and aviation is yet another energetic industry which has immense potential due to the country’s strategic geographical location. Therefore, this thesis is to investigate the relationship between airline service quality, passenger satisfaction and passenger loyalty. This study identifies the main factors of airline service quality, passenger satisfaction and passenger loyalty and proposes a model examining the directional relationship among these three constructs. It is based on an empirical investigation of the data collected from 150 of passengers depicturing from Bandaranayke International Airport during November and December 2016. Correlation and regression techniques are used to investigate the relationships among the three constructs namely: service quality, passenger satisfaction and passenger loyalty. The key findings of the study indicate that there is a no positive relationship between Arline Facilities and Passenger’s Loyalty, there is a positive relationship between Airline Performance, Airline Staff Attitude and passenger’s Loyalty, passenger’s satisfaction and passenger’s Loyalty and overall service quality is highly related to both passenger satisfaction and loyalty. An approach to the identification of the dimensions of airline services based on the stages of providing services to passengers is introduced and a loyalty measure, covering both attitudinal and behavioral aspects, is developed and used to examine the applicability of loyalty level in determining segments in the air passenger industry.