Passenger Traffic, Service Quality, Satisfaction & Intention: Trends in Post-Pandemic Era from the Indian Airline Industry

Abstract

The development of civil aviation industry in India fueled by the National Civil Aviation Policy (2016), has resulted in tremendous growth of passenger traffic moment. This study aims to evaluate this growth trends using verified published statistical secondary data from the Hand Book on Civil Aviation Statistics published yearly by ‘Directorate General of Civil Aviation’ (DGCA) from 2016 to 2023. Moreover, the study also aims to study the direct influence of service quality on customer satisfaction and purchase intention, as well as the mediating role of customer satisfaction in Indian cultural context. Therefore, total of (783) samples were collected from (13) airports located across the country, which accounted for (9) domestic airlines operational in the domestic civil aviation Industry, using a modified SERVPERF questionnaire, where the customer satisfaction and purchase intention dimensions were modified with the dimensions browed from the American customer satisfaction index and theory of planned behavior maintaining the same schematics of the SERVPERF scale. The data collected was computed using the mean values forming the proposed dimensions.

The secondary data collated from the DGCA Hand Book on Civil Aviation Statistics, was plotted into trend charts demonstrating the growth trends from the base year of 2016 to 2023, where a significant growth was seen at all the passenger metric dimensions, with exception of the COVID19 period. Again, the primary data collected was subjected to exploratory factor analysis revealing the construct pattern. These, factors were further computed forming the service quality, customer satisfaction & purchase intention construct for testing the hypothesized relations. The results reveled significant influence of service quality on customer satisfaction & purchase intention, while reflecting customer satisfaction as a partial mediator between service quality & purchase intention, supporting all the proposed hypothesis.