How Airline Service Quality (AIRQUAL) Affects Customer Decision Making in Airline Choices—A Conceptual Paper

Airline service quality (AIRQUAL) is an important element for all service providers especially in the airline industry. It derives from the popular service quality (SERVQUAL) model and appear as a medium for gauging customers’ satisfaction towards the services offered to them during the service encounter. Most airlines worldwide, understood the necessity in meeting customer satisfaction with outstanding quality services, and set about toward exploring for proxies to reassure its customers on the grounds of service quality. Hence, the objective of this conceptual study is to develop a modified airline service quality (AIRQUAL) scale in order to gauge the indicators within the dimensions of airline service quality and other expository attributes that can be applied to predict customers’ decision-making in airline choices. Most studies in South East Asian (ASEAN) only focuses on the original element of the airline service quality (AIRQUAL), thus highlighting the need to include airline cultural management as the new element in the airline service quality (AIRQUAL) scale. The final scale can be drawn on to outline a simple matrix for evaluating or tracking process for South East Asia (ASEAN) airlines performance, and it also may be a practical indicator toward determining service quality regionally. This study also presents an opportunity for further studies and will aid the stimulation on the momentum of current research for airline service quality and customers’ decision-making in airline choices.