Are low-cost carrier passengers less likely to complain about service quality?

Wittman, Michael D.

doi:10.1016/j.jairtraman.2013.11.008

Cited by 34 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…In contrast, airlines flying point‐to‐point do not gain economies from “hubbing”, and thus have a greater incentive to arrive on‐time. Wittman (2014) finds that, holding objective measures of arrival delays, mishandled baggage, and involuntary denied boarding constant, passengers of non‐focused airlines are more likely to file complaints with the Department of Transportation than passengers of focused airlines. The author attributes this finding to passengers of focused airlines lacking information regarding how to file complaints or having lower expectations of service quality.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the explanations for this moderation hypothesis differ. The first explanation draws from Wittman's (2014) findings that, holding objective measures of service failures constant, passengers of non-focused airlines have a higher propensity to complain than passengers of focused airlines. This finding indicates that the same increase in passenger complaint rates represents a greater decrease in service quality for focused airlines because it would take a larger decrease in service quality for focused airlines to trigger the same increase in customer complaints.…”

Section: Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Customer complaints represent the number of complaints filed by passengers with the DOT per 100,000 passengers flown by each airline. Customers can file complaints for several reasons, with the most common being flight problems, baggage, and customer service (Wittman, 2014). Customer complaints differ from the remaining three measures of service failures in that these data are not reported to the DOT by the airlines.…”

Section: Customer Complaintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Airlines serving the domestic U.S. market adopt one of two strategies. The first strategy, which has been labeled by various authors as "geographic specialist" (Lapré and Scudder, 2004), "focused" (Lapré and Tsikriktsis, 2006;Tsikriktsis, 2007), and "lowcost" (Wittman, 2014), is characterized by [1] flying point-to-point, [2] serving a limited number of geographic regions and/or city pairs, [3] operating fleets consisting of a few aircraft types, [4] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2015.06.003 0272-6963/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. primarily targeting economy customers seeking low prices, and [5] making limited use of strategic alliances.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Linking business strategy to service failures and financial performance: Empirical evidence from the U.S. domestic airline industry

Parast

Golmohammadi

McFadden

et al. 2015

J of Ops Management

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Developing an understanding of the relationship between service quality and profitability is of central importance to operations management scholars. In this study we seek to reconcile inconsistencies between extant theory and empirical findings regarding the relationship between service quality and profitability in the airline industry. More specifically, we draw on theories from strategic management, operations strategy, and economics to explain why the relationship between measures of service quality and profitability will be moderated by an airline's competitive strategy. We test our hypotheses by fitting mixed‐effects models to longitudinal data obtained from several governmental databases in the context of the U.S. domestic airline industry. We find that airline strategy moderates the relationship between some service failures and profitability. Specifically, we find that mishandled baggage and customer complaints more negatively affect the profitability of focused than non‐focused airlines. We also find the relationship between arrival delays on profitability is universally negative for focused airlines, but displays an inverted U‐shaped relationship for non‐focused airlines. Our findings provide significant contributions to the existing body of knowledge in service quality and operations strategy. We further outline the implications of these findings for practice and future research.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Customer Complaintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Linking business strategy to service failures and financial performance: Empirical evidence from the U.S. domestic airline industry

Parast

Golmohammadi

McFadden

et al. 2015

J of Ops Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…There are many studies analysing both ground and in-flight services (Aksoy, Atilgan, & Akinci, 2003;Cheng & Chang, 2005;Chow, 2014;Elliot & Roach, 1993;Gilbert & Wong, 2003;Jiang, 2014;Wittman, 2014 worldwide by category (best airport by region, size, best improvement or best regional airport). The ratings are calculated based on interviews with more than 400,000 passengers at airports.…”

Section: Research Papermentioning

confidence: 99%

Quality assessment of airport performance from the passengers' perspective

Suárez-Alemán

Jiménez

2016

Research in Transportation Business & Management

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Financial distress and service decisions: Empirical evidence from the US domestic airlines

Wang

2023

Manage Decis Econ

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Understanding the firm's service decisions under financial distress is of central importance to service quality regulators and operation management scholars. This study aims to add new evidence to the relationship between financial distress and airline services and reconcile the discrepancies between theory, practical implications, and empirical results. We examine if and how airlines in financial distress may change their service provisions to turn around, with a particular focus on the moderating role of operating unit costs and market share. In the study, four measures of service failure (the inverse of service quality) are constructed and evaluated: airline arrival delay minutes attributable to the carrier, cancelations attributable to the carrier, mishandled baggage, and involuntary denied boardings. In the US domestic airline business context, we estimate the mixed-effects model using panel data from the Department of Transportation and Wharton Research Data Services. We find robust evidence that financial distress plays a vital role in airline service provisions, and the distress-service relationship is contingent upon the operating unit costs of airlines.The findings provide evidence to help explain the different and sometimes contradictory empirical findings. We depend on the aggressive strategy framework to understand the service effect of airline financial distress.

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Are low-cost carrier passengers less likely to complain about service quality?

Cited by 34 publications

References 8 publications

Linking business strategy to service failures and financial performance: Empirical evidence from the U.S. domestic airline industry

Linking business strategy to service failures and financial performance: Empirical evidence from the U.S. domestic airline industry

Quality assessment of airport performance from the passengers' perspective

Financial distress and service decisions: Empirical evidence from the US domestic airlines

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