A Study of the Effect of Airline Services Dissatisfaction Elements on Switching Intention And Switching Behavior
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Park Soo-Young 
Published: June 2018

The purpose of the study was to identify which service dissatisfaction elements of airline passengers effect switching intention and switching behavior and how they effect each other so that the airlines could continue to retain passengers and prevent them from leaving, whereby it would help to prepare the marketing strategy to maintain or improve sales performance notwithstanding the competition while overseas travel demand is dropping worldwide. To accomplish the purpose, the document study and the actual study were done at the same time. During the document study, dissatisfaction elements of airline services, switching intention and switching behavior were theoretically studied and the assumptions were set out from the preceding studies.
For the actual study, the questionnaire survey was done with the Korean who arrived and departed via international airlines at the Incheon International Airport as to dissatisfaction elements of airline services, switching intention and switching behavior. For data analysis of the study, frequency analysis, factor analysis, reliability analysis, simple regression analysis and multiple regression analysis were made by SPSS 12.0 statistics package.
To analyze reliability, the factor analysis was made as to dissatisfaction with airline service, which came out with the 5 factors - factor 1 was named for reservation and ticketing service factor 2 for operations service factor 3 for ground service, factor 4 for in-flight service and factor 5 for incidental service, respectively. The factor analysis for reliability analysis of switching intention and switching behavior resulted in one element each. The result of the reliability analysis by Chronbach's Alpha coefficient indicated that all the 7 factors were above .700 by which reliability among questions were proved.
The result of the analysis was as follows. First, the dissatisfaction elements with incidental service, reservation and ticketing service, in-flight service and ground service showed a valid effect on switching intention. Second, the dissatisfaction elements with incidental service, reservation and ticketing service and in-flight service showed a valid effect on switching behavior. Third, switching intention for airline services indicated a valid effect on switching intention.
The suggestions from the actual analysis were as followings:
Firstly, the dissatisfaction element with incidental service was indicated to make the biggest effect onto switching intention and switching behavior. Airlines ought to be careful with mileage accumulation not to miss when on board and a system should be in place for passengers to use it with convenience where wanted. Also, it would be critical to give more mileage and to prepare more places to use it through diverse alliances. Extensive alliances with different airlines and different industries would be able to prevent passengers from leaving.
Secondly, the second biggest effect for switching intention and switching behavior was indicated coming from the dissatisfaction element with reservation and ticketing service. A passenger may have inconvenience when getting on board at the airport or be forced to cancel his itinerary due to misinformation or mistake of an airline. When additional cost incurs or air ticket cannot be used as its validity or restriction terms were not properly checked out, the passenger believes to have to pay unnecessary additional cost that have been unexpected. Accordingly, the staff in charge of reservation and ticketing should not only be well aware of the duties professionally but also make efforts to communicate the information of air ticket restrictions and to reduce working mistakes.