Key drivers of brand trust in a Latin American airline: the impact of Colombia’s Avianca customer experience

Abstract

Trust in a company's brand is essential for businesses that rely on repeat business from customers. In light of this, this study aims to investigate the key factors that drive customer trust in airline brands within the Latin American context. In order to accomplish this goal, an augmented version of AIRQUAL was utilized to evaluate Colombian native customers' perceptions of the customer experience (CX) provided by Avianca, a well-known and highly regarded airline active in Latin America. AIRQUAL is a model used to evaluate the quality of airline service proposed by Nadiri et al. (2008). It consists of five dimensions: airline tangibles, terminal tangibles, personnel services, empathy, and image. These dimensions were expanded to capture additional touchpoints identified in the literature. They represent internal and external touchpoints that make up the airline customer experience, resulting in a more robust research model. The additional dimensions, namely the impact of perceptions associated with other customers and the process of the purchase experience, were incorporated to account for a more holistic assessment of the experience provided. They also help capture the three stages of the experience provided by the airline as proposed by Namukasa (2013) before, during, and after the flight. The examined drivers of brand trust in the proposed model were the dimensions of the augmented AIRQUAL model and a measure of CX. Results indicate that while most dimensions impact brand trust, CX was identified as the key driver of brand trust and acted as a mediator of the dimensions of the augmented AIRQUAL and brand trust. According to the findings of this research, all three aspects of service quality—pre-flight service quality, in-flight service quality, and post-flight service quality—are of comparable significance and have a significant bearing on how customers evaluate their experiences.