Customer Experience – an analysis of the concept and its performance in airline brands

Abstract

This paper investigates the application of the concept of customer experience to the airline industry and the extent to which airline brands are delivering customer experience. A review of literature shows that the concept of customer experience is not well understood and has had no clear and consistent definition. The purpose of customer experience was identified as to deliver satisfaction throughout the customer experience that, in turn, leads to brand loyalty and advocacy. The customer experience concept was then applied to the airline industry. In order to measure its performance a study was undertaken using International Air Transport Association (IATA hereafter) data collected over a twelve-month period from a sample size of 18,567 passengers on fifteen major full-service airlines on Europe-Middle East-Asia routes. The elements of the airline passenger journey most strongly related to overall satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy were, for most airlines, cabin features followed by crew (for satisfaction) and inflight food and drink (for loyalty and advocacy). The analysis did not identify strong effects from the impact of airline continent, individual airline and flight class. The relationships between the passengers’ satisfaction ratings for specified elements of the journey and the overall satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy were not moderated by flight class.