Open AccessThe Importance of Service Attributes between Low-cost and Full-service Carrier Customers: A case of Airline Type Hybridisation
Author(s) -
Nkululeko Funyane
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
african journal of hospitality, tourism and leisure
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.232
H-Index - 11
ISSN - 2223-814X
DOI - 10.46222/ajhtl.19770720.190
Subject(s) - service (business) , courtesy , business , type of service , marketing , competence (human resources) , test (biology) , advertising , operations management , psychology , engineering , social psychology , paleontology , political science , law , biology
This study sought to assess if the importance attached by customers to the airline service attributes differed across low-cost and full-service airline models. A Mann-Whitney U Test was used to assess the difference between the two models. However, before subjecting the data to differential tests, an exploratory factor analysis (maximum likelihood) was performed on the fifty-five items of service attributes, reducing them into forty-two items retained into ten latent factors (airline service attributes). The results of the revealed a significant difference in the importance attached to staff competence, courtesy and responsiveness only. Such findings suggest that the positioning of airlines into binary (FSC - LCC) models could be a waste of effort and resources since airlines seem to be converging.