In the last 30 years, theaviation industry has been growing rapidly. In addition to its development oftechnology, the growing of airline industry due to its important roles assupporting the world trade, international investment, and tourism activities (Hanlon,2007). With that growing has been creating opportunities as well as challengesto this industry. The opportunities arise due to the increasing demand for theairline services.
While the challenges arise not only because of high level ofcompetition between the airlines, but also because of high demands for betterservice. There are two main typesof airline industry including full service airlines and low-cost airlines. Alow-cost airlines or low-cost carrier popularly known as a no-frills, discountor budget airline, which has up to 200 seats offering generally low fares. Forthe full-service airlines, which supports large, complicated operations withthousands of staffs and different types of aircraft with flights to domestic aswell as international destinations and offer various incentives that low-costairlines did not such as frequent flyer program, passenger lounge, meals anddrinks on board, etc. Jetstar Pacific, the first pioneer in low-cost airlinesof Vietnam, was established in 1990 under the name Jetstar Pacific AirlinesJoint Stock Aviation Company.
In 2012, Vietnam Airlines bought a 70% stake inthe company. In the stage of economic development, demand of using aviationservice has been growing rapidly, not only with domestic flights but also withinternational flights. Therefore, Vietnam is a potential market in tourismindustry. In the other hand, when applying “open skies” policy and joiningWorld Trade Organization (WTO), many foreign airlines have launched theirflights to Vietnam and with the launch of many domestic airlines has beenputting pressure on the airline industry become stronger. There must beeffective measures for Jetstar Pacific to enhance and ensure the effectivenessof business operations.
To remain itscompetitiveness and stability, Jetstar Pacific must render quality service totheir customers. One of the most critical factor in airline industry ispassenger satisfaction and it is an important part to ensure the businesssuccess in competitive world nowadays (S. Askoy, 2003). The purpose of this studyis to 1) analyzing the impacts of service quality on passengers’ satisfactionof Jetstar Pacific, 2) identifying what factors affect perceived servicequality in airlines service industry and effect on satisfaction of JetstarPacific passengers.
LITERATURE REVIEW 1. CustomersatisfactionInthe dynamic and fast-growing market, customer satisfaction has been playing avital part in the success and prosperity of one business. According to Oliver(1997), satisfaction is the consumer’s fulfillment response. It is a judgementwhen product or service was provided, a pleasurable reaction and unpleasantreaction from customer receiving that service. Satisfaction is an “overallcustomer attitude towards a service provider” (Levesque & McDougall, 1996)or according to Zineldin (2000) an emotional reaction is the difference betweencustomers want and what they are delivered.
When products or services that theyare received is not as they desired, customers tend to feel dissatisfied andmore likely to go elsewhere (Heskett et al., 1994), vice versa, when customersare satisfied, they are more likely to return. Therefore, it is very importantfor airline industry to maintain what customers want and what they experience.2. Service qualityServicequality is considered as a critical dimension of competitiveness (Lewis, 1989),which service meets or exceeds customer needs and expectation (Lewis andMitchell, 1990; Dotchin and Oakland, 1994). Service quality is an indispensablestrategy for any business to success and survival, as it influences customer’sbehavior willing to purchase products and services and performance of business(Zeithaml, Berry, & Parasuraman, 1996). It also has significant impact onbusiness performance, customer satisfaction customer loyalty and gaining higherprofit. Therefore, it has profound influence on an airline industry to approachcustomer satisfaction.
3. The relationshipbetween service quality and satisfactionServicequality and customer satisfaction were highly related (Sureshchandear et al.,2002).
To achieve a high level of customer satisfaction, service providershould deliver a high level of service quality as it is considered anantecedent of customer satisfaction (Cronin, Brady, and Hult, 2000; Anderson etal., 1994). Therefore, the quality has become an aspect of customersatisfaction. They both have certain things in common, while customersatisfaction is a broader concept, service quality generally focusses oncustomer satisfaction. However, it can be concluded that service quality hadstrongly influences on customer satisfaction.4. On-Ground ServiceProvidinggood on-ground services can bring initially strong impression on passengerswhen they first using the airlines to travel or before on board. According to F.
Y. Chen & Y. H. Chang (2005), activities of these services include informationabout airport, airlines, flights; reservations and ticket purchases; airportcheck in process; baggage handling; lounge services; food and drink catering.On-ground services are also playing a critical role that affects servicequality and cannot be ignored in aviation context.Fromthe definition mentioned above, this study hypothesizes that:H1:Factors of on-ground services and services provided affect perceived servicequality.
H2:Factors of on-ground services and services provided affect passengers’satisfaction.H3:Perceived service quality affects customer satisfaction. METHODOLOGY 1. Sampling selectionThe population of this study was passengers who hadbeen using Jetstar Pacific to travel.
This research using quantitative approachwith respondents amounted to 300 were selected in Ho Chi Minh city. The datawas collected by using self-administered questionnaire. 2.
Data collection A construction of questionnaire was designed basing onmain concepts which were drawn from literature review. Customer satisfactionwas anchored by satisfaction of service, quality and quantity of product suchas food and beverage. All of the variables were measured with five Likert scalewhich is equivalent to “1 = strongly disagree”, “2 = disagree”, “3 = neutral”,”4 = agree”, and “5 = strongly agree”.
