مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

In 1987 an open sky policy was implemented in the airline industry (Chang and Chiu, 2009) and this business freedom for flight operations resulted in increased competition among airlines. Consequently, in most parts of the world, the deregulation of the airline business has affected industry competition. During the past decade, two major airline business models were classified according to their strategic plans. The traditional model covered the comprehensive service package and the other concerned low cost airlines offering reduced prices with minimum extras (Tiernan et al., 2008a, b). Full service airline criteria include seats with space to recline, leg room, in-flight entertainment, baggage processing, meal service, in-flight amenities, a choice of first, business or economy class travel and partners such as Star Alliance, Sky Team and Oneworld. Air carriers identified the major strengths and weaknesses of their services related to their brand positioning (Wen and Chen, 2010). Competition in the airline business caused airlines to resort to different strategies such as intensive marketing, advertising and promotions combined with price and ticketing sales. In the airline business regulatory safety requirements are the top priority; air safety records reflect airline image, while high quality service is associated with passenger expectation (Liou et al., 2008). Airline businesses have consolidated their images, using integrated methods to manage the improvement of passenger satisfaction.

This paper examined the effect of airline image on passenger perception of service quality and safety operations. Part two reviewed the literature on service quality management, airline service criteria and SERVQUAL measurement, the Kano model and customer satisfaction coefficient analyses, airline safety criteria and rankings and TRIZ application tools. Part three examined three airline service quality case studies and Part four presented and discussed the conclusions.