مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Why are consumers willing to pay more for high-value-added services? This problem is explored through the case study of high-value-added domestic airline services in Japan.

Many previous studies of service marketing have divided service quality into outcome quality and process quality. In the case of airline service, there is no difference in outcome quality: punctuality between economy class and premium class is the same. It is obvious, accordingly, that customers who pay more expect to receive higher process quality. This suggests the importance of analyzing process quality in detail in the study of high-value-added airline services. In this paper, therefore, process quality is divided into staff correspondence and the content of premium service, and then the difference of each factor’s influence on customer loyalty is clarified. Because high-value-added service is considered to provide customers with a perception of superiority, its influence on customer loyalty is also discussed.

The status of high-value-added domestic airline services in Japan is as follows. Low-cost carriers (LCCs) have rapidly expanded their influence in the global airline market. In recent years, several LCCs have launched in Japan, such as Peach Aviation and Vanilla Air, whose main investor is All Nippon Airways (ANA), and Jetstar Japan, whose investors include Qantas Group and Japan Airlines (JAL). On the other hand, Japanese full-service carriers (FSCs) ANA and JAL provide high-value-added domestic airline services in Japan. Although the prices of high-value-added domestic airline services are 1.4e1.8 times higher than those of economy seats, these premium services maintain high seat occupancy rates.