Consumer satisfaction and service quality in airline industry

1.0 Introduction
Nowadays, service industries play an important role to boost up the economy of most nations.
Hence, service industry has become one of the most dominant competitive industries which can
be seen by replacement of manufacture industries by service industries (Lovelock, Patterson
&Wirtz 2015). Basically, service industry has been defined as offering a third party value creation
of experience or performance that is intangible and is not resulted in ownership (Lovelock,
Patterson &Wirtz 2015). Hence, the purpose of this report is to have an in-depth understanding of
importance of customer satisfaction, level of consumer satisfactions and service quality.
Moreover, in this report, Cathay Pacific Airways industry will be used as the implication of
analyzing consumer satisfaction, service quality and direct comparison of theories and customer’s
experience of Cathay Pacific Airline services.

2.0 Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction can only be identified on post purchase stage which is also
considered as evaluation of the service experience (Ozer & Gultekin 2015). Hence, as in Airlines
industry like Cathay Pacific Airways, their main focus has always emphasized on consumer
satisfaction. Moreover, Cathay Pacific Airways has been competing to offer the best service for
the customer in order to fulfill and even go beyond consumer expectations. In Cathay Pacific
Airways, the economy class is consider similar as economy plus which means the consumer may
have higher expectation on Cathay Pacific Airways service compare to other economy class
airlines. As the service chosen is economy class service, Cathay Pacific Airways had successfully
met beyond consumer expectation through their helpful action, speed service and comfortable
environment creation. The service offer for economy class is the fast-lane of dropping baggage,
hot towel to make customer relax for long journey and varieties on in-plane serving. Furthermore,
information of do and do not as well as tourist famous destination on that particular destination
will also be provided. Cathay Pacific Airways created an impressive service and experience to
their customer by understanding the expectation and value that they have paid.
Besides that, Cathay Pacific Airways should also take into consideration regarding the
service failure in which has a direct relation toward consumer satisfaction (Bettencourt, Lusch &
Vargo 2014). Insignificant service failure would impact Cathay Pacific Airways brand image or
cost depending on how fatal is the service failure. Insignificant service failure might cause
consumer dissatisfaction in which the process started from pre-purchase until post-purchase
(Lovelock, Patterson & Wirtz 2015). Thus, in order to prevent the service failure, Cathay Pacific
performed service such as sending out reminder email before the consumption stage. Based on the
experience, Cathay Pacific Airways had sent out email two days before the flight in which remind
us about the flight. Moreover, in the email, Cathay Pacific Airways has also the details of hotels
details and transportation of special drop off locations and airport pick-ups in the destination.
Furthermore, one day before the flight, Cathay Pacific Airways will send another email regarding
seat selections, baggage check-in and also preferred in flight meals selection.
Customer satisfaction is created from the satisfy feeling or affection after experiencing the
service. Hence, according to Morgeson III, Sharma & Hult (2015), consumer satisfaction will
result in creation of affection and positive feeling toward the services offered. Positive feeling will
actually build good brand image, strong brand recognition in consumer mind, customer loyalty
and also value creation (Hur, Woo & Kim 2015). Based on case experience, the customer is
actually satisfied with the service quality and thus there will be a high chance of consumer will
use Cathay Pacific Airways service again when comes to Airlines. Moreover, customer
satisfaction can also bring a good impact toward Cathay Pacific Airways such as though word-of-
mouth and recommendation to their friends. Thus, customer will always tend to share their
experience whether it is good or bad; therefore Cathay Pacific Airways must make sure it is a
positive word of mouth.
To conclude, customer satisfaction is a crucial element that all services provider must
focus on. By focusing on customer satisfaction, it will actually bring a lot of benefit to such as
loyalty, strong brand recognition and positive word-of-mouth in order to compete with their
competitor in the industry.
3.0 Service Quality
3.1 Tangible
According to the research done by Lerrthaitrakul and Panjakajornask (2014) when
travelling aboard using airline they found that the passengers expect to receive tangible comfort
the most. Tangible is whereby customers can usually or at some degree to directly experience it
through seen, touch taste and smell this experience can directly increase customers’ satisfaction
(Levitt 1981). For Cathay Pacific Airways the service that they provides to their customers with
parenting care like environment so that their passenger will have a very comfortable environment.
The usage of good quality service provide toward the passengers such as food that are served on
board and also well train crews that will always assist their passenger provide them with a
pleasant flight experience. Besides that, the technology and system that they provide to their
passenger during check-in and check-out, whereby the passengers will not have to wait for any
queue. This experience shows the tangible elements in this service sector is very important
element by providing and giving tangible service support and use of high quality products
throughout the service can increase customers satisfactory toward the company.
3.2 Reliability
Before experiencing a service consumer tends to seek for an expected outcome of the
service. Word of mouth, review and recommendation would be the most used method for
customer in order to measure the expected outcome from a service (Harrison-Walker 2001).
However, according to Writz, Patterson & Lovelock (2015) Consumers would be loyal to a
particular business or service if the reliable dimension is provided, meaning that the offered
promises are successfully directed. Looking from this aspect, Cathay Pacific Airways is able to
provide reliable offers such as Travel classes, Food and beverages, Entertainment, Duty-free
shopping, Portable Electronic Devices (PED) and Inflight health tips which has been done
successfully in order to get the customer retention (Cathay Pacific Airways 2016).

3.3 Responsiveness
Responsiveness is defined as keenness and prompt action to help customer (Ko& Harrah
2008). Responsiveness is one of an important element in service quality because it has direct
impact toward customer satisfaction. Thus, responsiveness has also been used in enhancing
consumer satisfaction through hospitality and customer services. Related to the experience,
Cathay Pacific Airways has actually reflected their firm responsiveness through friendliness,
warm greeting, fast documentation and fast lane of luggage drop. This has reflected that good
quality training have been given to their staff both on board and front counter. Hence,
responsiveness could also create strong brand recognition in which will lead to positive word-of-
mouth and repetition of using similar service.
3.4 Assurance
The assurance dimension in service quality is intended to measure the level of confidence
and trust by consumers to a particular service or firm. In airline services, the success of assurance
dimension is to make sure that the safety aspects are involved and provided in the service (Rose
1990). One way to attain the top level of assurance is to train the staff to be able to demonstrate
clearly the safety procedure (Basfirinci & Mitra 2014). For Instance, Inflight health tips, Medical
equipment on board and Aircraft environment. In 2016, Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre
has acknowledged Cathay Pacific Airways to be the new leading airline company in terms of the
safety record (Cathay Pacific Airways 2016). This has indicated that Cathay Pacific Airways not
only performed a safety in board procedure, but also the aviation management
3.5 Emphaty
The last dimension to measure a service quality would be Empathy. This dimension
indicates the caring and understanding of a particular service or firm towards the consumer
(Writz, Patterson & Lovelock 2015). Implying this dimension helps to build a long term
relationship with consumers. Therefore, Cathay Pacific Airways has managed wide ranges of
services in order to attain long term relationship and satisfaction to consumers. Some services
include web check in, immigration on board, special meals, Portable Electronic Devices (PED)
and In-flight health tips which are intended to ease the airline procedure and provide satisfaction
to consumers (Cathay Pacific Airways 2016).

4.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, the focus on customer satisfaction and measuring towards service quality is
very important for service oriented industry to be competitive in the market. This can be clearly
seen by Cathay Pacific Airways’ industry putting service quality and customer satisfaction as their
main priority with the way they service their customers. The experience with Cathay Pacific
Airways would create a wonderful experience for the customers and the service quality that
Cathay Pacific Airways have provided to meet or go beyond consumer expectation. From the
analysis, it is found that the relation between the concept and theory that was supported from
books, websites and journals are linked and practice by Cathay Pacific Airways. This shows that
to be successful and competitive in the market service oriented, company should understand more
towards customer expectation through customer satisfaction and service quality concept.

Word count: 1481 words

Diary
Our group consists of four members; one of us is Malaysian where the three of us are
Indonesian. We love to travel to many different countries to explore new cultures. Our group
members are; Barnabas Yee Peng, he is Malaysian and 22 years old, he is currently majoring in
Marketing and International Trade at Victoria University. Kevin Setiawan, he is Indonesian and
20 years old, he is currently majoring in Marketing at Victoria University. Raziq Muhamad
Chatab, he is also Indonesian and 19 years old, he is currently majoring in Marketing at Victoria
University. Vera Stephen, she is also Indonesian and 19 years old, she is currently majoring in
Marketing and International Trade at Victoria University.
Pre-Purchase stage
Cathay Pacific Airways is the airline of Hong Kong, and it is considered as the best Top
Five airline in the world, ranking at number three among hundreds of Airlines service provider
awarded by SkyTrax. Our group planned to go to Hong Kong for our mid-semester break holiday,
which would start from April 11th2016 to April 17th 2016. We planned to go earlier on April 9th
2016 to April 14th 2016. Since we were headed to Hong Kong, we chose Cathay Pacific Airways
to fly with because it is based in Hong Kong. We chose Cathay Pacific Airways due to the quality
of the airline based on the review about it online. The flight class that we chose was the economy
class, despite it was only an economy class, according to Kevin and many review, the quality
actually similar with the economy plus class, therefore we chose the economy class from Cathay
Pacific Airways.
The two days before flight, each of us received email from Cathay Pacific Airways,
reminding us about our trip to Hong Kong. The email also gave us detail regarding the preparation
to go to Hong Kong; it also provides hotel details also transportation to commute in Hong Kong
later on, most importantly the email provide us the option for the airport transportation including
special drop off locations and airport pick-ups. The last 24 hours before flight, each of us received
another email from Cathay Pacific Airways; the email offers the online check-in for us, seat
selections, and baggage check-in and also preferred in flight meals selection. Our flight was on
April 9th 2016 on 17:40, arrived at Hong Kong International Airport on 21:40.
The Consumption Stage
We arrived at the airport to drop our baggage, we did not have to queue the long line to
check-in ourselves because we did it online earlier; the Cathay Pacific Airways provided us with
special line for us and we could easily drop our baggage with quick and ease. The staffs at the
check-in counter were very friendly and they smiled a lot; they also speak various languages such
as; English, Mandarin, and Cantonese. We felt that the friendliness of the staffs in check in
counter and their ability to speak multiple-languages would ease the process of checking in and
dropping baggage
After the process of immigration was completed, we board on the plane. While entering
the cabin, the friendly flight crews greeted us; they helped us to find our seats. The cabin of the
aircraft was clean and they had the nice scent of the cabin, the lighting of the cabin was using
calm color and nice ambient of lighting. The aircraft used to operate the flight was Boeing 777-
200, it was a quite large plan for long journey. As one of our group members speaks Cantonese;
Barnabas could easily communicate with the flight crews. When we found our seats location, the
flight crews approached to keenly help storing our hand-carry baggage to the over the head cabin.
Once seated, the flight crews walked around to distribute hot towels to help us feel relax,
the safety instruction played on the multi-media infotainment system throughout the journey from
the gate through the runway before took off. As the aircraft was about took off, the camera
mounted on the body of the aircraft showed us the processes of taking off until it left the runway
and fly above the city; it was good experience to watch. The flight took off as scheduled without
delay, which is good. Thirty minutes after took off, when the sign of seat belt had been turned off;
the flight crews started distributing dinner; we got to pick many selections of food, both halal and
non halal food; as one of our group; Raziq, he could not eat non-halal food. The food given was
nice; it included the salad and mashed potato, fruits, main course and dessert we could choose, we
chose ice cream, the ice cream they provided were Häagen-Dazs and Ben’s & Jerry.
After the meal was served, the light of the cabin dimmed, giving us time to have rest at the
flight to give relaxation mood of the passangers. The infotainment system provided many new
movies and also albums of singers. We rested until the time of preparation of landing at 21:20, the
flight crew gently woke us up to get us ready for landing. The service provided by Cathay Pacific
Airways was good, they hold up to the awards given to them as the 3rd best Airline Service
Provider in the world.
Post Purchase Stage
Arriving in the Hong Kong International Airport, the landing was smooth because the pilot
seemed professional enough. As we landed and the aircraft was heading to the arrival gate, the
welcome video was played, describing Hong Kong and information that could be useful for
Tourists visiting. The flight experience with Cathay Pacific Airways was pleasant; the experience
we have got was beyond our expectation. The services provided by the airline really valued for
money, especially for the flight crew service, infotainment systems and quality of the service,
truly a recommended airline to travel with.
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