Project Report

TITLE: Customer Satisfaction in Airline Industry United Kingdom (British Airways)

Sharad Ganjihal

Sharad Ganjihal

Abstract

In service industries Customer satisfaction plays a very significant role. Several

authors had believed that Customer satisfaction and service quality are inter-related.

The purpose of this study mainly focuses on the customer satisfaction levels in Airline

sector in context with British Airways Limited in United Kingdom. In order to

determine the satisfaction levels of its customers in British Airways the author in this

thesis work had adopted exploratory method of approach and adopted quantitative

methodology to evaluate the existing relationship between the Customer satisfaction

and service quality measurement in British Airways Limited. The author had gathered

primary data in the form of conducting questionnaires and a survey of travellers

flying through British Airways Limited and also relied on secondary data resources

such as journals, books, articles for the purpose of the research study. Finally the

researcher could establish his aims and objectives in Research findings by applying

Paired Sample test in SPSS application and had concluded his work by mentioning

existing limitations and future recommendations.

Sharad Ganjihal

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Almighty for his kind blessings on me during my entire MBA

programme.

The thesis work was undertaken by me under the guidance of my supervisor Dr.

James Ogunleye. I would like to extend my heartiest thanks to Dr. James Ogunleye

for his prominent guidance, invaluable inputs and feedbacks, timely support as well as

steady encouragement all through the process of dissertation work.

I also would like to thank my professors for their enormous support during my MBA

programme. I would like to thank my beloved parents, friends and colleagues for their

assistance and kind words during my entire thesis study. Finally I would like to

convey my deepest appreciation to my dear family for their uninterrupted support and

concern.

Sharad Ganjihal

Contents

1. Introduction..........................................................................................................................1

1.1 Aims and Objectives....................................................................................................3

Literature Review.....................................................................................................................4

2. Introduction......................................................................................................................4

2.1 Customer Perceptions.....................................................................................................5

2.2 Customer Satisfaction.....................................................................................................6

2.3 Customer Satisfaction in Airlines Sector United Kingdom.............................................7

2.4 British Airways United Kingdom...................................................................................9

2.4.1 Customer Satisfaction at British Airlines...............................................................10

2.5 Service Quality.............................................................................................................11

2.5.1 Dimensions of Service Quality..............................................................................13

2.5.2 Determinants of Service Quality............................................................................14

2.6 Customer Satisfaction and Service Quality Measurement in British Airways..............15

Methodology..........................................................................................................................16

3. Introduction....................................................................................................................16

3.1 Research Purpose..........................................................................................................16

3.2 Research Design...........................................................................................................17

3.3 Data Collection.............................................................................................................18

3.4 Linking the Aims and Objectives of the Research work with the Methodologies.........21

3.5 Methods of Data collection and Analysis......................................................................22

Research Findings...................................................................................................................23

4. Introduction....................................................................................................................23

4.1 SPSS Application results with total values by T-Test (Paired Sample Statistics).........23

Figure 1: Gender Wise Travel.............................................................................................24

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Figure 2: Gender wise travellers Vs Customer Satisfaction................................................25

Figure 3: Age Group Wise Vs Total Passengers Travel & Satisfied Customers.................26

Table 1: Age Group Wise Vs Total Passengers & Customer Satisfaction..........................27

Figure 4: Passengers Travel by Different Class Vs Customer Satisfaction.........................28

Table 2: Passengers Travel by Different Class Vs Customer Satisfaction..........................29

Figure 5: How often Passengers Travel yearly Vs Customer Satisfaction..........................30

Table 3: How Often Passenger Travel Vs Customer Satisfaction.......................................31

Figure 6: How often Passengers Travel Vs Different Age wise & Passengers satisfaction.32

Table 4: How often Passengers Travel Vs Different Age wise & Passengers satisfaction. .34

Figure 7: How often Passengers Travel Vs Different Class Travel.....................................36

Figure 8: How often Passenger Travel Vs Gender Wise.....................................................37

Figure 9: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs Customer Satisfied...............................37

Table 5: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs Customer Satisfied.................................38

Figure 10: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs How often Passenger Travel...............40

Table 6: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs How often Passenger Travel..................40

Table 6: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs How often Passenger Travel..................40

Table 6: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs How often Passenger Travel..................41

Figure 11: Overall Quality of Service.................................................................................43

Table 7: Overall Quality of Service Vs Total Passengers Travelled...................................44

Figure 12: Overall Quality of Service Vs Gender...............................................................45

Table 8: Overall Quality of Service Vs Gender..................................................................46

Figure 13: Expected anything else form British Airways...................................................47

Figure 14: Suggest British Airways to Others.....................................................................48

5. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................52

6. Limitations of this Research Study.....................................................................................53

7. Future Recommendations...................................................................................................53

References................................................................................................................................. I

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Bibliography............................................................................................................................IV

Appendix I................................................................................................................................V

Appendix II............................................................................................................................VII

Figure 15: The Kano model................................................................................................VII

Figure 16: Five key points of customer feedback...............................................................VII

Figure 16: Most Travelled seating class by UK Business travellers in 2007.....................VIII

Figure 16: Service Quality Ring........................................................................................VIII

Figure 16: Operational improvements must support strengthened customer relations for airline................................................................................................................................... IX

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I. Background

Airline sector is one of the major developing sectors across the World. The sector

contributes revenue to the nation and promotes tourism, foreign direct investment and

trade across nations. British Airways group comprises of British Airways plc and

several alliances with other companies namely in the article 13 and CBI (2009)

British Asia Airways, Deutsche British Airways, British Airways Connect Ltd, and

British Airways Holidays Ltd.

British Airways was initiated in the year 1924 widely known as Imperial airways,

until year 1935, subsequent to its alliance with other medium-level air transport firms

it thus emerged as a major firm popularly known as British Airways Limited. Above

all in the year 1939, British airline was publicly owned to begin the British Overseas

Airways Corporation (BOAC). By (Salamie and Selvaggi, 1995) consequently in the

year 1974 British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and British European

Airways (BEA) both had amalgamated in the British Airways Board and was declared

as British Airways Limited.

“The World’s most preferred Airlines” is the vision of the British airways. The

company wants to accomplish its vision by rendering most excellent service to its

passengers both on board and on the ground.

British Airways Limited is one of the most popular airlines in United Kingdom

catering to the needs of both domestic and International customers. The airline offers

its services in ninety four nations covering one hundred and forty nine destinations

(article 13 and CBI 2006).

As per the records in the year 2004 to 2005, the airlines carried nearly 35 million

passengers all over the world and more than 9 million tonnes of cargo. British

Airlines workforce was approximately 47,500 during that period.

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II. Research Focus

The customer awareness as well as their happiness is the foremost primary factor

influencing the passengers who travelled by British Airways, and the major strategy

of the airline sector is to sustain its growth by providing excellent customer service

and to maintain international standards in terms of service quality and thus strive to

implement innovative measures to retain existing passengers and to attract new

customers. Therefore it is very necessary for the British Airways management to

analyse and understand what customer really wants and expects from the company

and whether the firm is really able to reach up to the expectation of its passengers and

also to analyse the significance of service quality, its dimensions and determinants as

a tool for measuring the customer satisfaction in the service industry.

III. Research Aim and Objectives

The major purpose of this research work is to analyse and determine the customer

satisfaction in the airline industry in context to British Airways Limited United

Kingdom and in this process it is very vital to assess the link between the customer

perceptions and expectations, as meeting customer demands is not a prerequisite but

an essential in this competitive global market. Therefore in this course work the

author strives to assess how the customer perceptions and expectations were measured

from view point of passengers as well as the management and also to signify the role

of service quality in providing the excellent customer satisfaction in airline industry.

IV. Aims and Objectives

The primary aim of this research is to examine the Customer satisfaction levels in

Airline Sector in United Kingdom with reference to British Airways.

To examine customer perceptions and customer expectations in Airline Industry

with reference to British Airways.

To understand and analyse the role of quality of service in affecting customer

satisfaction in Airline Sector in context with British Airways.

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V. Layout of Dissertation Thesis

This dissertation has been divided into 6 chapters and the contents and motives of

each chapter have been discussed below.

This research work has been grouped into six divisions along with the summary of

each section briefly explained.

Chapter 1: Introduction

In this preliminary section the author gathers sufficient data which emphasizes the

awareness and expectation of the customer along with best service quality is the most

fundamental point in all major airline sectors especially in British Airways. Customer

relationship management has a positive impact on a firm’s organizational

performance and its output. The companies formulate resolutions to follow definite

approach to remain aggressive. Therefore as part of thesis the writer will study about

the various concepts in the airlines sector, particularly British Airways Limited. The

author clearly defined various terms such as Customer satisfaction, customer

perceptions, expectations and service quality. The motive of the research has been

identified and above all the aims and objectives of the course work were clearly been

addressed by the researcher.  

Chapter 2: Literature Review

In this Section the author gathers vital information about customer satisfaction,

customer perceptions and expectations and role of service quality in improving

customer satisfaction. Further the researcher conducts an in-depth study by referring

various books, journals, articles and magazines to understand the nature of airline

industry and further narrow down his thesis on the British Airways Limited which is

one of the most popular airlines in the United Kingdom catering its services to both

domestic and International passengers across the World. Subsequently, the author also

explores literature to re-examine the dimensions and determinants of service quality.

Thus by conducting further research the author was able to analyse the levels of

customer satisfaction and service quality measurement in British Airways Limited.

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Chapter 3: Research Methodology

In this segment the author will explain the purpose of this research work, the design of

the coursework and the various data types and data collection methods. The author

also conducted study in detail regarding Qualitative and Quantitative research

methods. In this research work the author had adopted both quantitative and

qualitative research method for this thesis work. The quantitative method was applied

by interviewing the passengers of British Airways on important airports in United

Kingdom and Qualitative Research method was executed by conducting a broad

research on British Airway’s performance by referring the annual reports, periodicals

and reviews. Furthermore, in this section the researcher discusses about the various

data collection methods and highlights both its merits and demerits. In this research

work, the researcher had adopted primary data which was collected in the form of

questionnaires with a sample size of 190 was collated from the British Airways

passengers and also explored academic journals, articles and books in the form of

Secondary data to analyse and validate the aims and objectives of this research work.

Chapter 5: Discussion and Findings

In this section the researcher examines and analyses the data obtained from review of

literature and research methodologies. This section is considered as significant as it

assesses and validates the aims and objectives of this research study statistically by

applying SPSS paired sample test.

This is an important chapter which delves to investigate the points emerging from

literature and the objectives of this research. With conclusive evidence and with

support of reliable data compiled in chapter 4 the author will analyze the degree to

which customer expectations are met and what are strategies needs to implement to

retain the customer by British Airways in the competitive market. Also, how far the

two main objectives of the organizations that include expanding their strategic

capabilities and reducing the competition are fulfilled through such cooperative

strategies particularly the airlines and more specifically British Airways in today’s

business environment will be discussed. It will also explain the scope for further

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research. Even author used SPSS application to conclude with ANOVA Test and

pared Sample Test.  

Chapter 6: Conclusion and Reflection/Limitations

In this chapter the researcher concludes the aims and objectives of the thesis work

moreover summarises and concludes the purpose of the research study conducting in

various stages and also highlights the scope of further in-depth study as well as

discusses the various limitations of the course work.

Sharad Ganjihal

1. Introduction

Aviation sector is one of the major industry sectors in United Kingdom. In a year around two

hundred thirty five million passengers travel by Air. (www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/). In services,

airline sector plays a predominant role. It promotes tourism, international investments and

globalisation which contribute to the economic growth of a country.

British Airways is one of the popular airlines worldwide catering to the needs of both domestic

and international passenger its operations are headquartered in London United Kingdom and

spread across the World in 72nations covering 149 destinations. As per the recent studies in the

year 2004/2005, British airways stood first in the airline industry in United Kingdom carrying

over 35million passengers and roughly about 0.9 million tonnes of cargo (CBI, 2006).

Many researchers and analysts believed that customer beliefs and awareness play an important

role in Service industry. It is also considered that Service quality is the fundamental aspect of

strategic management and marketing for firms in service sector (Atilgan, et al., 2008). Customer

satisfaction and reliability as a result of high quality, ensures long term growth and success

(Atilgan, et al., 2008). If service sector has to carry on its growth it has to focus on offering

excellent customer service and improve customer satisfaction by analysing their needs,

understanding their perceptions and meeting them. Determining customer demands and

observations in airline industry is really tricky as customer satisfaction is ascertained by several

insubstantial aspects ambiance of the cabin, quality of food served in the flights to name a few.

Customer satisfaction is one of the foremost major processes in aviation industry and is

established as most vital to the success of business competition. The terms customer satisfaction

and service quality have been both explained as meeting the expectation of the service with that

which is really experienced by the end user (Sureshchandar, 2010). As a result, when consumer’s

practices meet or exceed their expectations, the service is observed as a quality service and the

recipients are usually satisfied customers. On the other hand, when the service experienced by

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customers is below than their expectations, the perception of service quality is affected and

customers are usually not satisfied.

According to (Chen & Chang, 2005) in the airline sector, judging what passenger wants and

imagine is necessary to deliver excellent customer service and quality and subsequently to

analyse the firm’s performance standards. Of late, Air travel industry has been in the news very

often for various reasons. As per the recent studies conducted by several researchers, business

analysts, media and top management in aviation sector it is understood that the potential

expansion of airline industry is in risk (Bhatti and Qureshi, 2010). In order to stabilise and

improve the growth of aviation sector it is understood that major focus should be laid on

Customer satisfaction and Customer relationship management.

In recent times, Customer desires and outlook has changed. In the airline sector, assessing what

customers really want is vital to render expected service quality. Hence it is very important for

the top management in airline sector to evaluate the passenger requirements from customers

view point and in several instances it is observed that they focus more on cost cuts which results

in well-organized operations on the contrary it will have an undesirable effect on the satisfaction

levels of the end user (Chen & Chang, 2005). The airline business must aim at satisfying the

customer wants and providing high class customer service by Chitnis (2007). The primary motto

of airline sector is to improve services which catch the attention of and keep passengers who are

happy, faithful and provide good reviews of the airline (Chitnis, 2007).

Customer satisfaction has turn out to be an important goal in service operations as it brings good

reputation to firms in airline sector (Ranaweera and Prabhu, 2003). Dennett and Colgate (2000)

supported that as competition created by deregulation has become more intense, service quality

in the airline industry has also received more attention. (Clemes et al. (2008) stated that in the

airline companies especially meeting excellent level of quality of service became a promotion

activity in the beginning of 1990’s due to high end competition. In service sectors such as the

airlines industry, the unique characteristics of services involve that top management realize what

customer desires and expects, and meets them(Aksoy, et al., 2003).

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In today’s global economy competition has become very severe. According to Hague (2011)

several products and services are facing stiff rivalry from their opponents, while several

organisations try to draw customer’s attention by proposing price discounts and enhancing

customer satisfaction. Of late, in today’s global market, “Customer is treated as King”. The

customer has become vital in making any novel product booming in the market. Customer

perceptions of goods or services are generally assessed by the interests and preferences of the

customers.

The concepts of Customer awareness and customer satisfaction are inter-related. If the goods or

service produced by the organisation is up to the customer reach and expectations which results

in customer happiness and he becomes more faithful to that specific goods or service Garchar

(2010).

1.1 Aims and Objectives

The primary aim of this research is to study the Customer satisfaction levels in Airline

Sector in United Kingdom with reference to British Airways.

To examine customer perceptions and customer expectations in Airline Industry with

reference to British Airways.

To understand and analyse the role of quality of service affecting customer satisfaction in

Airline Sector in the context to British Airways

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Literature Review

2. Introduction

Aviation sector plays crucial role in moving passengers or goods from one place to another either

it may be domestic or international, due to economic globalisation and technical advancements,

the airline industry is facing stiff competition. According to (Atilgan, et al., 2008) in the industry

like airline, quality of service is significant because providing excellent quality of service to

customers is necessary for the continued existence of the sector. Quality of service in airline

industry is the focal point of satisfaction by travellers, traveller’s loyalty, and traveller’s choice

of airline. Therefore, offering better service quality may deliver more customer satisfaction

which will result in attracting more customers and increasing profits in business. Customer

satisfaction is assessed to play a vital role in every business model especially in service

industries such as tourism, hospitality and airlines. Parahoo (2006) said that high level of

customer satisfaction will directly leads to high returns by reducing expenditure like marketing,

and word-of-mouth. Several market researchers and business analysts argued that there exists a

strong connection between customer satisfaction and customer perception (Singh 2006).

According to (Parahoo, 2006) it is clearly evident that customers who are happy and delighted

will attract the new customers by word of mouth; this will impact on increase in sales, thus

resulting in profits to the firm. Hence customer satisfaction proves to be an important aspect in

airlines sector. Customer satisfaction derives from assessing customer perceptions and

performance.

Excellent customer satisfaction may be anticipated to enhance the reliability of the customer,

minimize price flexibility, protect market share from rivals, lesser transaction costs and

advertising, and to enhance organisation’s goodwill in the market place (Parahoo, 2006). In

recent years, customer has wide range of goods or services available in the market thus leading

to high expectations, on the contrary, in service sector in order to get improved results every

company should give more weight to service quality and customer satisfaction. For that reason

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many authors argued that evaluating customer awareness and offering excellent customer

satisfaction is critical for the progress of an organisation (Narasimhan, 2011).

2.1 Customer Perceptions

The choices made by the customers are mainly impacted by their awareness on a specific product

or services, which bring in more customers and improving brand name and reducing marketing

costs.

The optimistic result of customer choices and activities will result in making the customer happy

and contended. Thus, it will lead to higher customer satisfaction. Recently, customer perceptions

have become more important for achieving steady growth (Singh, 2006). Customer perceptions

are extremely vital and by improving the positive link between the company and the customer,

his notions about the organisation and its service delivery and products may vary and as the

customer starts consuming the product more often, he will get more used to the product and once

the customer is attached to that specific product of the firm, his observations will be more

generalised and after some period, the same customer will bring in more customers to the firm

(Giese and Cote, 2002). According to (Hague et al., 2011) it is important to categorize what

exactly the consumer really wants and why he likes a specific firm’s goods or service. The

customer’s wishes and desires will mainly be based on their life style, income and social status.

The choices of the customer vary if there is a change in their earnings or standard of living.

Hence it is very essential for every company to assess and understand how the customer

anticipates their goods or service by (Grayson, 2001). By following this strategy, it will be easy

to meet the customer perceptions with the co-ordination of several resources in the firm. The

feedbacks and surveys conducted by the firms will be critical to gauge the customer emotions,

needs and expectations by (Smith and Wagner, 2003) and further will assist in assessing the

merits and demerits that are contributing to the firm’s continual growth. Additionally, reviews

will also help in understanding the annual earnings, life style, social status, and geographical

location which direct the customer actions and mind-set.

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Of late, it is essential for the business groups to realize and concentrate on how other customers

observe the product or brand in the market. Thus, the theory of customer perception and

customer satisfaction are inter-related. Customer anticipations play a critical role in influencing

customer satisfaction with services.

2.2 Customer Satisfaction

According to Dahlsten (2003) Customer satisfaction may be described as the notion which

customers may encounter about the products or services of a specific brand or business firm

when the customer expectations have been reached or surpassed the existence of that particular

goods or service. As per (Kotler, 2003) satisfaction is an individual’s feeling of pleasure or

dissatisfaction obtained from comparing a good’s possible outcome in contrast to the customer’s

demands. According to Siadat (2008) an organisation may increase it sales and customer’s

loyalty by offering excellent satisfaction by the customer. Therefore customer satisfaction has

happened to be one of the focal point for all business especially those in service industry.

According to Parahoo (2006) customer satisfaction is gauged to sustain existing customers and

as a result, effectiveness and growth of business.

Benner (2009) argued that to maintain customer expectation and customer loyalty in order to

gain higher long-term performance of the company, customer satisfaction is one of the important

factors. Its certain that customer expectation meets the customer satisfaction, this will be the

driving force to build the strong relationship between client and a company as per Russell (2007)

also supported this will directly lead to more and more profitable to the organization. Parker and

Mathews (2001) argued that there are two key analysis of satisfaction, Satisfaction itself a course

of action as well as an end results.

Customer satisfaction is constantly the outcome of the observation processes. Customer

satisfaction may be implied as a decision relied on the growing practice through a distinct goods

or service relatively than a business event (Hossain, 2006). Customer satisfaction may be

explained as an individual’s complete assessment of the performance of a product or service till

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now. According to Mququ (2005) customer satisfaction as a post purchase thoughts framed

through a rational evaluation of the quality that a customer expected to obtain from an exchange

and the intensity of quality the customer notices actually receiving from the trade. To be specific

it is the state of customer perceptions and expectations. As per (Parahoo, 2006) customer

satisfaction is a fundamental factor in improving production process and end user relationship.

The importance of customer satisfaction and its use for determining the quality from the

customer’s outlook have been highlighted by many researchers in airline industry (Berry, 2005).

Customer contentment is the emotion or outlook of a client towards a goods or service following

it had been consumed. Customer happiness is the significant end result of endorsement activity,

where it operates as a link between various levels of consumer purchasing activities.

Customer satisfaction is the effect of the customer’s awareness, assessment and emotional

reaction to the spending experience with goods or service (Anthony, 2005). The hypothesis of

customer satisfaction has fascinated the interest of intellectuals and research analysts for more

than three decades in the occasion of the fact that clients are the foremost source of most

organisations revenue. Savitz (2009) explained customer satisfaction as an result of obtain and

use as a consequence from the purchasers’ evaluation of the benefits and expenses of the

purchase and utilize drawn from the buyers’ assessment of the payments and expenditure of the

acquisition relative to the probable end results. Many research studies were prevalent on

consumer satisfaction and many analysts had conducted research on the evaluation of quality of

service in airline sector. For the first time in the year 1986 Kearney was the first author who

assessed service quality of airline business with the perspective of airline customers in his

research study by Venkatesh and Nargundkar (2006).

2.3 Customer Satisfaction in Airlines Sector United Kingdom

Airline sector in United Kingdom (UK) is considered to be major industry. In the year 1988, the

sector contributed £10.2 billion to GDP (CBI, 2006). The services offered by the industry are at

par with the international standards catering to the needs of both domestic and international

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passengers. The airline sector is very significant to the United Kingdom’s tourism as 1.8 million

citizens in the country are engaged in this sector report by (CBI, 2006).

Satisfaction of a customer is a purpose of observed quality and notions of degree to which

remarked quality unsuccessful to counterpart customer expectations. Customers will constantly

evaluate the remarked performance of goods or service with little performance mark. Karma

(2004) believed that Consumers will only be contented when the estimated performance is more

than the target; conversely dissatisfaction happens when the performance is below the

expectation. As per Rachel and Andy (2010), those customers are merely satisfied and they find

it simple to shift when other firm is providing a better cost or package while the importance of

customer satisfaction is highlighted in business where competition is severe by the Kotler (2000).

The primary objective of airline sector is to provide excellent service and competency. Rachel

and Andy (2010) argued that excellent service is vital while the number of absolutely contented

customers segment is an important factor as assessed by some analysts for high profits. A

business organization must regularly gauge consumer satisfaction in order to analyse and identify

whether clients were delighted or not. According to Torbica and Storh (2001), particularly in the

airline sector the degree of customer happiness is plainly recognized off late in the process,

whilst the majority of the customers spent the cash by now. When firms study on which

characteristics of a service or products affect consumer satisfaction, their duty is to adapt their

current strategies in a manner that would lead to utmost consumer contentment.

According to the literature, outstanding service is achieved through committed and loyal staff.

To provide a reasonable level of service and quality, Rhoades (2008) stated that a firms approach

should be focused in improving the skills and ensuring efficiency, motivation and commitment

of the employees even supported by (Benner , 2009). As the personnel are vital to service

delivery, there is a necessity to have employment protection, training and dispersed decision

making. According to (Chitnis, 2007) Airline industry should assess and determine the demands

of its passengers and their satisfaction levels. Satisfaction may be described as what the

organisation provided to its customers and whether the company met the customer’s demands

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(EUPAN, 2008). Airline sector may develop the scope of achievements if they allow its

workforce to take individual responsibility and go an extra mile to make the customers happy

and contended (Chitnis, 2007). Customer satisfaction is when the consumer is delighted with the

service delivered by the airline sector that meets the client desires, wants and expects.

In this research, we examine thoroughly about the several segments of expectations. It is been

observed that it costs five times as much to advertise and convince a new client as to retain the

existing one. They should analyse the current market trends, customer preferences and should be

innovative and flexible. Airline industry should focus on making customers happy and should

allocate finances on providing excellent customer service.

2.4 British Airways United Kingdom

In United Kingdom British Airlines is the largest Airlines offering both domestic and

International services and occupies fifth position Worldwide covering 550 destinations. The

company employs 47000 workforce across the World out of which 85 percent of them was based

in United Kingdom generating an annual income of £7.8 billion (www.britishairways.com).

Caleo (2005) believed that “British Airways is popular across the World for their premier service

and World class facilities, having been marked in various articles and feedbacks by airlines as

well as passengers”.

Many believe that British airlines not only provide State of art facilities to its passengers but also

maximises its efforts in providing excellent service by its personnel who are dedicated and

committed (www.thetimes.co.uk). According to Caleo (2005) British airlines was started as

Aircraft Transport and Travel in 1919 with its voyage from Le Bourget to Honslow in August

1919. After its alliance with few other airlines it was known as Imperial Airways operating with

only eighteen crafts and two hundred fifty personnel. The British airways have progressed within

a century and became major flight carrier in Great Britain (www.Britishairways.com). The

British airlines was very popular not only for offering largest international flights but also for

providing excellent facilities such as extensive leg room for passengers in economy class cabins,

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special lounges at par with International standards and excellent onboard catering services

maintaining good hygiene. In addition to this, it offers many value added services for instance,

valet services, online checking, travel advice, online personal bookings, British airways had

introduced e-ticketing system wherein the passenger may provide an evidence for personal

identification and may check-in without holding the air ticket physically. Of late, the company

has introduced one of the excellent services through online mechanism, where flights may be

altered up to thirty minutes prior to exit time Caleo (2005). Consequently, all of these excellent

complimentary services work mutually with great customer service department attributed fame

and glory to the prominent airlines British Airways.

2.4.1 Customer Satisfaction at British Airlines

In United Kingdom British Airways Limited are the most popular airlines as it offers World-

class facilities and excellent customer service to its passengers and it’s the most preferred airlines

in United Kingdom. In the year 2008-2009 British airlines lay down the target to improve

consumer experience, persist to improve business profits by making it cost effective, enhance its

operations and make commercial accountability a major part of the trade. Many business analysts

believed that high fuel costs and the economic slowdown has urged the British Airlines top

management to alter the plans and amend the course of action. Yet, it strived to make

considerable growth against primary objectives, leading to further success. In addition to this, the

galleries lounges at Terminal 5 and 3 had a fabulous reception. They have received record scores

of customer service at Terminal 5 due to their redesigned services related to luggage and

punctuality. The Facilities for premium passengers has been renewed with the new club world

goods in several flights. The British airways intend to offer the excellent connectivity to its

passengers across the world. Apart from their long distance routes from London city to New

York JFK and they are planning to widen their network of flights to Johannesburg, Dubai and

Saudi Arabia. The British Airways is believed to be the World’s most excellent Airlines in the

market and they have a strong base in London as the Heathrow airport provides world class

facilities to both domestic and international passengers. By improving profitability ancillary

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services that provide passengers immense value and strengthen their brand image. Their motive

is to develop their mileage business and increase revenues from outsourced engineering, in-flight

sales, and through their company online website. On their website they have introduced a variety

of great value restaurants and car hire options package with their aircraft.

The British airways have continued to rise inspire of severe competition in the airline industry.

The airlines had initiated new destinations from London to Hyderabad and St.Kitts and in the

year 2008 they launched open skies and auxiliary flying from Europe to North America and

bought L’avion in the year 2008 and in the year 2009 the first flight from city of London to New

York JFK service was commenced.

2.5 Service Quality

In the early 1980s the significance of service quality in goods and services were completely

understood by several companies. The term Service quality is a vital tool in gauging customer

satisfaction. Quality of goods and services may be simply ascertained by customer on the other

hand it is often believed that Service quality is much more complex. According to Lewis and

Booms (1983), Service quality is an evaluation of how good the product or service offered by the

firm matches customer anticipations. Offering excellent service quality means being

conventional to customer expectations on a regular basis. To ensure excellent customer

satisfaction every company should focus on rendering best customer service which may make

the customer contented and cheerful. Therefore many authors believed that the concept of

customer satisfaction if often associated with service quality (Rhoades, 2008). The word service

quality may be cited as the focus on reaching the customer’s desires and needs and how well the

service provided is received by the customers. Berry and Zeithamal (2005) argued that concept

of service quality has been associated to costs, effectiveness, better customer satisfaction,

sustaining existing customers (Parahoo, 206).

The concept of Service Quality has been termed as a tool of customer satisfaction. Customer

happiness is a feeling or mindset of a client towards a particular product or service after it is been

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consumed. A satisfied buyer helps in promotion of sales of goods, hence customer satisfaction

acts as an inter-link between several stages of behaviour of prospective clients. For instance, a

customer may repurchase a product if he is more satisfied with that. The brand or image of an

organisation is often improved based on the number of satisfied customers because a satisfied

customer may bring in new customers. Customer satisfaction may be measured by significant

customer perceptions of service quality, fondness and prospects (Godwin and Petter, 2010). To

be precise satisfaction or dissatisfaction is the difference between how a customer expects to be

concerned and how he or she thinks being cared for. Ayob (2005) states service quality as “the

level to which the service, the service procedure and the service establishment can meet the

outlook of the user. Some popular definitions include “suitability to utilize” (Rhoades, 2008), or

“one that pleases the customer” (Kandampully, 2008).

Firm’s produces goods and offer services to its customers such as space storage, distribution,

product insurance, customer service and promotion. A production unit has both tangible and

intangible aspects. Service quality has more intangible factors than produced goods. The term

service quality may be distinctive as the focal point on meeting the customer’s wants and desires,

and how well the service delivered reaches the customers (Anthony, 2005). Service quality may

be stated as customer perception of how better a service reaches or go beyond their expectations

(Godwin and Petter, 2010). The service activities are really critical for the financial system to

function and to improve the quality of our life. The author James Fitzsimmons defines service as

“unpreserved, subtle experience carried out for a customer performing in the role of co-

producer”. Services are often described as ideas and concepts; goods as products or

commodities. Consumers experience physical products such as talcum powder and leather goods

which is different than intangible service such as air travel. Buyers may physically experience

the features of talcum powder and leather products whereas the services are generally subtle.

Services are widely carried out openly for buyers. The study of Service Quality concept is more

complex as it often deals with intangible and consumable elements. Every firm expect their

Motivated and dedicated personnel to make their consumers happy by offering excellent service.

This will result in bringing in new customers. Hence the need to identify and understand the

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distinctive nature of services, its function and impact of its services in our everyday life is very

significant.

It is often argued that there exists ten determinants to gauge service quality but author Savitz

(2009) classified these determinants into five. Firstly Reliability, this entails the stability in

performance and fairness. In simple words, it may be described as acting as per the customer

demands and delivering what is promised by the firm, for example, delivering services to the

customer within the stipulated time. Secondly, Responsiveness means optimistic and enthusiastic

personnel in the organisation ready to provide quick and prompt service to customers. If a

passenger has a problem, how the customer service department staffs attend to his queries and

take necessary action and resolve them with the turnaround time. Here in airline industry the

ability to respond well to the customer is assessed. Thirdly Assurance, it implies that every

organisation should try to attract the customer by its brand value/image; on the contrary it should

win consumers by its honesty and creditability. Next determinant may be explained as Empathy

meaning being polite, thoughtful and friendly to the clients. Every firm expects its workforce to

give respect to its customers. In service industry especially in airline sector every company

expects its staff to be soft-spoken, polite and courteous. Lastly Tangibles as it incorporates the

proof of the service physically in terms of facilities, outer appearance of the staff, the tools and

machinery used to render the service.

2.5.1 Dimensions of Service Quality

Customer satisfaction is also considered as the perceptions of services obtained by the customer.

When customer expectations are surpassed, the quality of service is rated as excellent on the

other way round then it will be rated as very poor. The bridge between actual services delivered

and expected it can be stated as service quality. According to (Sureshchandar, 2010) service

quality process may be divided into diverse aspects, Firstly, technological secondly practical or

process quality.

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Sedatole (2003) believed that there exist three different aspects of service quality which affect

customers awareness which may be studied as mentioned below: Firstly Technical quality,

second one is known as Functional quality and last one is Outcome quality.

Technical quality attributes, firstly the staff should be very much efficient and systems or

procedure should be simple and should provide excellent service to the client as per their

expectations. In airline industry, this aspect plays a vital role as providing safety and excellent

service to all the customers is important as this will be experienced directly and may be reviewed

by the customer. Rhoades (2008) believes that technical quality is a fundamental but not a

suitable provision for higher levels of service quality. Integrative quality deals with how the

various divisions of the service delivery process function collectively. This is fundamental in

airline sector as the passenger ought to have a better flight practice. The third feature is

functional quality which may be determined by the process in which the service is rendered to

the passengers. It may be used to create a cut-throat edge by concentrating on the personal traits

of the service met.

According to (Sureshchandar, 2010) Service Quality is one of the major factors for any airlines

sector. Providing superior service quality has been accepted as the best well-organized method to

make sure that a firm's contributions are exclusively placed in a business consisted with similar

reasonable contributions (Savitz, 2009). As per Narasimhan (2011) supported firms that carry out

a customer focused approach based on quality of service vary typically from especially those

firms that does noting, and it is clear that the previous organisations are generally more booming.

In the airline sector, quality of service is vital as offering excellent service quality to customers is

significant for airlines' existence. Airline quality of service is the main factor of customer

satisfaction, consistency and passenger's preference of airline (Mazzeo, 2011). In the airline

industry, undertaking studies on service quality is ample (Kandampully, 2008). The importance

of different modes of assessing service quality series from standard service ratings by customers

through in-flight reviews to assess appraisals, market revisions, grievance and feedback

monitoring (Russell, 2007).

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2.5.2 Determinants of Service Quality

As studying the literature it is been understood that customers exercise similar criteria in gauging

service quality in service industry. These measures falls fewer than 10 key groups branded as

dimensions of service quality: 1.Consistency: It means steadiness in performance and reliability

2. Approachable: This may be explained as the eagerness and friendly nature of personnel to

offer excellent service. 3. Competencies: Implies term of the requisite skills and information to

carry out the service 4.Convenience: This represents convenience and affability 5.Consideration:

This may be explained as the admiration, politeness, compassion and sociable nature of staff

6.Transparent: Indicate to communicate with passengers in language they can easily understand

to attract diverse customers 7. Reliability: denotes integrity and loyalty 8. Safety: means free

from risk, danger or threat 9. Know your customer: It’s an attempt to identify with the needs and

desires of the consumers 10. Tangible: It deals with the physical circumstances and image of the

product or service.

2.6 Customer Satisfaction and Service Quality Measurement in British Airways

The significance of consumer satisfaction and service quality in airline sector is improving

drastically as it is necessary for its survival in today’s global economy. According to (Sedatole,

2003) quality of service delivered to the customer by any service oriented company is understand

by the customer is feeling superiority or inferiority. Savitz (2009) stated that providing excellent

quality in the service sector has been accepted as the major useful means of guarantying that a

firm’s contributions are outstandingly placed in market packed with similar one. Parahoo (2006)

also explained that firms should be alerted about the service quality problems as these can

decline the customer reliability by twenty percent. Grayson (2001) cited that the SERQUAL

mechanism highlighted the bottom line of what service quality actually signifies, i.e. an

assessment of service excellence by the end user.

British Airways is very popular in providing excellent customer satisfaction among the aviation

sector across the World (www.BBC.com). It is the top rated airlines in United Kingdom. The

Company conducts annual surveys interviewing about one million passengers every year,

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collates all the feedback received and understands and analyses the needs & desires of the

consumers and drafts out action plan accordingly (www.britishairways.com). The business

analysts will use this feedback of customer satisfaction to understand the customer’s

requirements and their preferences. After examining the reports thoroughly it may be understood

that there exists a link between excellent customer service and firm’s fiscal performance and

these may be cited as the critical tools in measuring and improving company’s profits.

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Methodology

3. Introduction

As per Saunders et al (2007) for every research work identifying and adopting a suitable method

is very critical. Here the author arrives at absolute conclusions regarding the research layout,

method, and objective of the thesis as well as key devices applied by him in the research study. A

specific procedure of thesis shall be exercised widely to draw conclusions right through this

section. This section may offer combination of different alternatives in support of every

preference further the author intend to validate the reasons for the implementation of a specific

method and design as the best alternative in this detailed research work and its goals.

3.1 Research Purpose

As per (Saunders et al, 2007) supported in educational research, study on methodology research

principles are classified into three categories popularly known as Descriptive research thereafter

exploratory research and finally explanatory research. The author (Golafshani, 2003) believed

that a specific method of study may incorporate several fundamentals pursuing further preferred

principle. Further towards understanding and adopting specific particular research purpose which

is more suitable and apt to the objective of this course work it is vital to evaluate the each one of

objectives of the study accurately. The descriptive research methodology may be described as the

approach that targets at investigating and sorting the existing data about a specific incident

(Sekaran, 2003). The Explanatory method contains a general revision of many resources required

to ascertain facts about a topic that was studied in depth in the past, thus in-depth examination is

necessary. Descriptive method may be obtained mainly in marketing research study (Malhotra,

2004). As per (Saunders et al, 2007), explanatory research, may be undertaken to have a better

understanding of the link in the course of variables as well as the objectives of understanding the

link between variable. Exploratory theory shall thus happen to offer thorough knowledge of

various concepts which were never analysed by marketing researchers previously. Furthermore

the author in this thesis work the researcher had adopted exploratory method of research

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approach of methodology and descriptive method of approach as the former to be considered to

be highly appropriate to the researcher’s aims and objectives thus understanding the philosophy

of British airways and to determine the satisfaction levels of its passengers.

3.2 Research Design

According to Sekaran (2003) the concept of Research design may be little diverse as of research

technique, because it explains fact-finding relatively beside the information gathering tools.

According to (Saunders et al, 2007) there exists two different research designs one is inductive

and other is deductive. As per (Saunders et al, 2007) highlighted a specific study into an issue

that is new, thrilling, and on which there exists a literature, it may be apt to work inductively. As

a result, the need to adopt an inductive mode of approach in the research study to assist in the

presentation of concept out of information obtained to make further research simple. As per

Ryan, (2006) on the other hand deductive approach begins with author selecting a prevalent

assumption which was previously experimented via study of the information collated. Based on

the particular method, the investigation layout may vary. Inductive analysis thus depends on the

perceptions along with the developments from the experimental stage en-route for theoretical

level, Zikmund (2003) while the deductive reasoning surfaces from the theoretical segment of a

set hypothesis also later on evaluating the study based on the experimental stage.

Further author may as well opt towards executing quantitative or qualitative method of study. As

per Hossain (2006) qualitative research, is understood as the best suitable alternative in support

of this specific research work, applying explanatory method to the data collected as well as

understanding the concept and the purpose of the course work delete itself. (Yin, 1993) moreover

selection of qualitative approach need not necessarily in particular determine the relevant

information gathering methodologies. The author explains a specific approach method does not

mean delete specific outline information compiled that may be qualitative or quantitative by.

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3.3 Data Collection

The Data Collection process is a fundamental segment study method. There is numerous

information gathering techniques, having its own merits as well as demerits. Golafshani (2003)

argues that investigation with the utilization of proper methods sincerely boosts the importance

of the course work.

So as to ascertain information compiling strategy, the classification must be done amid diverse

categories of information collected. As per Bryman (2001) primary data are the facts collated

thesis against happening of real incidents. According to Malhotra (2004) primary information

may be gathered each time when the secondary information is unobtainable and insufficient to

respond the author’s problems as well as goals. Primary data collection may be executed via a

range of processes along with questionnaires, discussions, examinations and core groups.

Bryman (2001) states secondary data as the facts gathered from prevailing sources, for instance

books, journals, newspapers and websites. According to (Ryan, 2006) secondary data is the

information collected by different authors, without the intention of the research work in general.

Research is an organized, vital and decisive examination which targets to establish in the

direction of the development of facts and insights (Coleman & Briggs, 2002). Even though there

are several methods of research approach there exists two significant methods one known as

Quantitative and other one as Qualitative approach. According to Easton (2010) quantitative data

may be stated as the statistical information namely figures, the qualitative data may be explained

briefly as the sort of information which is available as transcripts. For example, the information

collated by the author by means of surveys and feedback would be quantitative, on the other

hand data obtained by means of questioning participants may be explained as qualitative.

Subsequently, researcher even utilized the secondary information also for quantitative analysis.

To cite an instance, the secondary data adopted for the study of the literature review in this

research study was qualitative. The statistical data analysis is generally carried out to measure

the link amid variables otherwise revising tendencies in addition to the influencing elements

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(Easton, 2010). (Sekaran, 2003) for qualitative data diverse way of method is required. The event

typically begins through author’s concentration on the information along with ascertaining the

classification of the major facts more over tendencies inside. According to Golafshani (2003)

information has the merits of easy to obtain as well to use and less inexpensive to the author yet

the writer might have easy accessibility to similar information.

Bryman defines qualitative research as the move towards the revision of the communal across

the globe that begins to portray and evaluate the traditions and individual activities from the

perceptive of those being observed. Golafshani (2003) believe that, qualitative research entails

the compilation of a mixture of observed sources for example case studies, individual

experiences, reflective discussions, past interactions, and visual presentations that explain the

regular and challenging instants and significance in personal lives. The intention of qualitative

approach is not to invent a novel concept on the other hand analysing that concept, so qualitative

methodology intends to determine customer perceptions and behaviour (Asutay, 2003).

According to Bryman (2001) qualitative research is a research approach that generally highlights

numbers relatively in the data collation and testing and the approach that is applied is inductive

and dealt with subjective conclusions. Mququ (2005) defines: Qualitative research is explanatory

and the authors intend to analyse what preference public will give to certainty, not to precise,

quantitative research may be understood as sequence of various stages moving from theory to

final conclusions.

Quantitative methodology is primarily based on positivist viewpoint and authors who judge on

positivist philosophy state that there is a real purpose that subsists apart from the anticipations of

those who monitor it therefore the purpose of science is the improved understanding of the real

facts. The function of quantitative methodology is to found proper link between correlated

variables (Asutey, 2003). According to (Bryman, 2001) quantitative research is explained as the

gathering of statistical numbers in addition to displaying an outlook of the link involving the

concepts and course study as deductive and it final achieves intent results. In this research paper,

the author had selected quantitative methodology, as it targets to determine actual relationship

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between the identical elements and also to analyse a particular problem. Additionally, this

research work involves collating facts to conclude the research problem.

The drawbacks to carry out investigations and interviews for corporate which are prevalent

across the World motivated the researcher to engage in a qualitative research. It had been

examined as a time consuming and more cost effective process to contact workforce of corporate

firms. But the interest of the researcher and effective guidance of the tutor motivated the author

to apply both quantitative and qualitative research method for this research work. The

quantitative method was executed by interviewing customers of British airways and other

companies on main airports in United Kingdom.

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3.4 Linking the Aims and Objectives of the Research work with the Methodologies

Aim 1: The primary aim of this research is to study the Customer satisfaction levels in Airline

Sector in United Kingdom with reference to British Airways, in order to achieve the same,

information in the form of customer satisfaction factors such as fare, customer service,

promotion & sales and logistics would be required to be analysed thoroughly. Hence researcher

would undertake a descriptive mode of study and also quantitative research method would be

applied in this dissertation paper.

Objective 2: To examine customer perceptions and customer expectations in Airline Industry

with reference to British Airways: The main purpose of the thesis work is to explore the

customer’s insight and observations of airline sector and customer’s convention preference

which may be considered as an pragmatic investigation, Thus, a quantitative research data

collection method may be applied. The information collated from passengers from diverse age

groups as well as from diverse passenger levels in the form of questionnaires on customer

perception in airline sector would be collected to have an improved understanding on the end-

result and it will help the researcher to draw conclusions appropriately.

Objective 3:To understand and analyse the role of quality of service in affecting customer

satisfaction in Airline Sector in context with British Airways: In order to achieve this objective,

the researcher had done a exploratory study to evaluate the role of service quality in meeting

customer satisfaction and also collected secondary data in the form of Literature from various

data sources such as books, journals, online articles and compiled the data together to develop

theories and expand it further. Existing theories and anticipated models are understood as a

means to highlight their significance in United Kingdom. Additionally, current theories on

service quality and approach are determined to be practical for a broad understanding of the

practices followed by British Airways Limited.

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3.5 Methods of Data collection and Analysis

The data has also been gathered in the form of questionnaires where the sample was collected

from the British airways customer who was developed as a source of prime source to this

research work. The researcher collected feedback from British airways customers at the airport

out of 140 passengers 85 passengers give the feedback about the service provided by the British

airways. In addition to this author interviewed some more passengers at the airport in person

with travellers 45 responded out of 50 travellers. Because of the limited timeframe, researcher

tried to come to the final conclusion with the above sample collected at the airport. The

secondary data applied for this research is derived from academic journals, newspapers and

publications thus moreover from analysing the online data. It is often argued that secondary

research may offer facts and figures with reliable data which are less costly and easy to access

(Blaxter, 2008). The questionnaire was framed in the form of open-end and straight enquiries. To

examine the feedback collected from the questionnaire the researcher has applied the technique

of explanatory figures and uncomplicated interrelationships. In this thesis, explanatory data

method was applied as the opinion poll was conducted on a small scale where the sample count

is relatively less in number. There exists a three different interview techniques namely

structured, semi-structured and non structured the researcher selected the semi-structured method

for this thesis. The motivation for adopting the semi-structured interview was mainly due to the

questions framed to determine the anticipations of British airways as the best airline among the

passengers across the World. The questions posed to the customers had proven to be very useful

in assessing the customer service standards at the British Airways. According to Mququ (2005)

states that the replies to the questionnaire may be accepted as the face value however an answer

to an interview will be clear and accurate. The response to the interviews has been explored by

representing statistics for the surveys.

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Research Findings

4. Introduction

In this chapter author will critically analyse data and information collected. The final results may

be assessed and evaluated with the help of SPSS application moreover will link theoretical aspect

of correlation which was examined in the review of literature chapter to the research findings

based on primary data.

This research requires analysing data collected about the British Airways. Thus, to determine the

purpose of the thesis, various primary statistical information resources were collected from

passengers interviewed at the Manchester, Birmingham Airports United Kingdom.

4.1 SPSS Application results with total values by T-Test (Paired Sample Statistics)

As per Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient will be utilised to assess the relation

among Gender, Age Group, Class travelled, How often they travel, Occupation, Overall Quality

of Service, Expect anything else from British Airways, Suggest British Airways to others. T-Test

will be useful to reach to the final results wherein to be accept or refuse the null hypothesis. The

given below proposition will be obtained in order to study the considerable link among

passengers service provided with satisfaction.

In this dissertation the author tried to evaluate the sample data collected in the form of

questionnaires by conducting interviews to the passengers and analysing the same by means of

tool known as Statistical hypothesis. The hypothesis may be carried out at the 95 percent

confidence level. Generally hypothesis will result in one of the two options (We may accept the

null hypothesis or we reject the null hypothesis). This may be simply explained as accepting the

null hypothesis means hypothesis testing is accurate, conversely, rejecting null hypothesis means

the sample data gathered is inadequate or it is sensible to exercise alternative hypothesis over the

null hypothesis.  In this thesis work, the author had highlighted two types of hypothesis:

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Null Hypothesis: The null hypothesis represented by H0, here, hypothesis is that sample

observations resulted directly from change (H0: Pr = .05).

 

Alternative Hypothesis: The alternative hypothesis is signified as H1, here, hypothesis is the

sample annotations which are influenced due to few unsystematic reasons (H1: Pr ≠ 0.05).

Three ways of testing null hypothesis & alternative hypothesis

Two-Tailed Test

H0: Pr = 0

H1: Pr ≠ 0

Note: - Equal hypothesis Vs Not equal Hypothesis

Figure 1: Gender Wise Travel

GenderPassenger

sMale 53Female 32Others 0

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62%

38%

Gender Wise Travel

Male Female Others

Figure 1 depicts that the gender wise travel by passengers. It is been observed that male

travellers are more than female travellers, where as male travellers stand at 62 percent and

female travel by 38 percent. It is also observed that male travellers are nearly double than female

travellers.

Figure 2: Gender wise travellers Vs Customer Satisfaction

GenderPassenger

sTotal Satisfied with

ServiceMale 53 38Female 32 27Others 0 0

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Others Female Male0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Gender Wise Vs Cust Satisfaction

Passengers Total Satisfied with Service

It is clearly evident that from figure 2 out of 32 female travellers 27 passengers were very much

satisfied with the service provided by British Airways, compared with 53 male passengers

commented of which only 38 passengers were happy with the service. It shows 84 percent of

female were satisfied and only 72 percent of male were happy with the British Airways.

Figure 3: Age Group Wise Vs Total Passengers Travel & Satisfied Customers

Age GroupPassenger

s Satisfied< 15 8 7> 15 and < 30 17 14> 30 and < 45 38 24> 45 22 20

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Figure 3 depicts different age wise travel by British Airways and their satisfaction passengers. It

is very clear that passengers travelling under age 15 are very minimum and the highest is age

between 30 and 45, the second highest travel age group is above 45. The important point is age

above 45, are very much happy by 91 percent people. Least satisfied people from age group 30

and 45 with 63 percent. So, British Airways need to concentrate more on 30 to 45 age group

requirement.

Table 1: Age Group Wise Vs Total Passengers & Customer Satisfaction

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Passengers (Male / Female)

21.2500 4 12.57975 6.28987

Customer Satisfaction

16.2500 4 7.41058 3.70529

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Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig.

Pair 1 Passengers (Male / Female)

Customer Satisfaction

4 .947 .053

Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

t dfSig. (2-tailed)Mean

Std. Deviatio

n

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

Pair 1

Passengers(Male / Female) -

Customer Satisfaction

5.00000

6.05530 3.02765 -4.63533 14.63533 1.651 3 .197

t (4) = 1.651

The data given in the table above may be concluded as higher age group passengers are more

positively correlated. The rate of ‘r’ denotes a very strong positive correlated amid age group

with high satisfaction. The significance of ‘t’ is 1.651 i.e. rating of ‘t’ is falling between -1.960 –

1.960.

Figure 4: Passengers Travel by Different Class Vs Customer Satisfaction

ClassPassenger

s SatisfiedEconomy Class 62 47Premium Class 12 10

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Business Class 7 5First Class 4 3

Economy Class Premium Class Business Class First Class0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Passengers Travel by Different Class Vs Customer Satisfaction

Passengers Satisfied

Figure 4 represents passengers travel in different class and their satisfaction level. Maximum

passengers will travel in economy class and least is first class then followed by business class.

This is because of the high price variance at economy class and all other class. Satisfaction level

shows 100 percent at first class, business class, whereas economy class stands at 69 percent.

Table 2: Passengers Travel by Different Class Vs Customer Satisfaction

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Passengers Travel by Different Class

21.2500 4 27.36634 13.68317

Customer Satisfaction

16.2500 4 20.71030 10.35515

Paired Samples Correlations

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Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Passengers Travel by Different Class

21.2500 4 27.36634 13.68317

N Correlation Sig.

Pair 1 Passengers Travel by Different Class & Customer Satisfaction

4 1.000 .000

Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

t dfSig. (2-tailed)Mean

Std. Deviatio

n

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

Pair 1

Passengers Travel by Different Class – Customer Satisfaction

5.00000

6.68331 3.34166 -5.63464 15.63464 1.496 3 .231

The table 2 correlation table gives clear picture that ‘r’ co-efficient is positively correlated

with .231 at 4 different class of travel. The rate of‘t’ is 1.496, which is between -1.960 to +1.960.

Out of four group of different class of travelling, major two groups commented as 100 percent

satisfaction and only one group less satisfied i.e. economy class.

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Figure 5: How often Passengers Travel yearly Vs Customer Satisfaction

How Often do you flyPassenger

s SatisfiedMore then 1 21 12More then 3 48 40More then 5 16 13

More than 1 times More than 3 times More than 5 times0

1020304050

How often Passenger Travell Vs Customer Satisfaction

Passengers Satisfied

In this research author is trying to understand nearly how many times each customer will travel

with British Airways and very much satisfied. As per the Figure 5 more than major junk of

travellers get satisfied who are travelling more than 3 times by 84 percent and followed by 81

percent people are satisfied those who are travelling more than 5 times. British Airways need to

concentrate more on the people those who travel first time, as they have more expectations.

Company needs to keep a track on people travelling for the first time or repeatedly travelling.

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Table 3: How Often Passenger Travel Vs Customer Satisfaction

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 How Often Passengers travel (More than 1/ More than 3 / More than 5)

28.3333 3 17.21434 9.93870

Customer Satisfaction

21.6667 3 15.88500 9.17121

Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig.

Pair 1 How Often Passengers travel (More than 1/ More than 3/ More than 5) & Customer Satisfaction

3 .984 .113

Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

T dfSig. (2-tailed)Mean

Std. Deviatio

n

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

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Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 How Often Passengers travel (More than 1/ More than 3 / More than 5)

28.3333 3 17.21434 9.93870

Pair 1

How Often Passengers Travel (More than 1/ More than 3/ More than 5) – Customer Satisfaction

6.66667

3.21455 1.85592 -1.31872 14.65205 3.592 2 .070

Figure 6: How often Passengers Travel Vs Different Age wise & Passengers satisfaction

How Often do you flyPassenger

s Age >15 and < 30 Age > 30 and < 45 Age > 45More then 1 21 7 9 5More then 3 48 2 38 8More then 5 16 1 11 4

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More than 1 times More than 3 times More than 5 times0

102030405060

How often Passengers Travel Vs Diffferent Age Wise & Passengers

Satisfaction

Passengers Age >15 and < 30Age > 30 and < 45 Age > 45

Figure 6 shows clearly that more than 3 times a year travelling passengers are more and with age

group between 30 & 45 falls under this category, those who are more satisfied. Next highest is

more than 1 time travellers of which nearly all the different age group get satisfied with the

service by British by same percentage. The passengers those travel more than 5 times a year, age

between 30 and 45 is better off, but the passengers crossing age 45 are not much satisfied. British

Airways are not able to meet the customer expectation for the old people especially travelling

repeatedly.

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Table 4: How often Passengers Travel Vs Different Age wise & Passengers satisfaction

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Total Passengers 28.3333 3 17.21434 9.93870

Age more than 15 less than 30

3.3333 3 3.21455 1.85592

Pair 2 Total Passengers 28.3333 3 17.21434 9.93870

Age more than 30 and less than 45

19.3333 3 16.19671 9.35117

Pair 3 Total Passengers 28.3333 3 17.21434 9.93870

Age more than 45 5.6667 3 2.08167 1.20185

Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig.

Pair 1 Total Passengers & Age more than 15 less than 30

3 -.220 .859

Pair 2 Total Passengers & Age more than 30 and lessthan45

3 .979 .132

Pair 3 Total Passengers & Agemorethan45

3 .895 .062

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Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

T dfSig. (2-tailed)

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Mean

Std. Deviatio

n

Std. Error Mean Lower Upper

Pair 1

Total Passengers – Age more than 15 less than 30

25.00000

18.19341

10.50397 -20.19492

70.19492 2.380 2 .140

Pair 2

Total Passengers – Age more than 30 and less than 45

9.00000

3.60555 2.08167 .04331 17.95669 1.323 2 .050

Pair 3

Total Passengers – Age more than 45

22.66667

15.14376

8.74325 -14.95251

60.28584 2.592 2 .122

Age between 15 and 30

t (3) = 2.380

p = 0.140

r = -0.220

Age between 30 and 45

t (3) = 1.323

p = 0.50

r = 0.979

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Age above 45

t (3) = 2.592

p = 0.122

r = 0.895

After carefully analysing the above table for the age between 15 and 30 ‘r’ vale is -0.220 which

is very weak correlation and vale of‘t’ is 2.380 which is beyond -1.960 to +1.960 where null

hypothesis is not accepted. Whereas for the age group between 30 and 45, rate of ‘t’ is 1.323

which is between -1.960 to +1.960, so, null hypothesis is accepted and rate of ‘r’ is 0.979 which

is very nearer to the coefficient 1, which represents very positive correlation among the

variables. Finally for the age group beyond 45 rate of‘t’ is 2.592 which falls beyond -1.960 to

+1.960 so, null hypothesis is not accepted and the rate of ‘r’ is 0.895 is between 0 to 1, so there is

a correlation among the variables.

Figure 7: How often Passengers Travel Vs Different Class Travel

How Often do you fly

Passengers Economy Class

Premium Class Business Class

First Class

More then 1 21 20 1 0 0More then 3 48 19 7 13 9More then 5 16 1 2 8 5

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More then 1 times More then 3 times More then 5 times0

5

10

15

20

25

How often Passenger Travel Vs Dif-ferent Class they Travel

Economy Class Premium Class Business Class First Class

The above figure 7 speaks any passengers travelling more than one time contribution goes to

major junk for economy class then very less percentage by premium class. For the passengers

travelling for more than 3 times with British Airways are filled with all the classes. Major

contribution from economy class and then followed by business class then first class. Finally the

passengers travelling for more than 5 times a year are majorly contributed by business class then

first class there after premium class and the least is economy class.

Figure 8: How often Passenger Travel Vs Gender Wise

How Often do you fly

Passengers Male Female

More then 1 21 9 12More then 3 48 31 17More then 5 16 13 3

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More then 1 More then 3 More then 50

10

20

30

40

50

60

How often Passenger Travel Vs Gender Wise

Passengers Male Female

As we have already discussed that male travellers are more than female travellers, but by

observing the given above figure 8 represents, passengers travelling for more than 3 times and

more than 5 times are dominated by male passengers and the passengers travelling for the first

time female travellers are more.

Figure 9: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs Customer Satisfied

OccupationPassenger

s SatisfiedSalaried 42 37Salaried Professional 30 19Self Employed 13 9

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Salaried Salaried Professional Self Employeed0

1020304050607080

Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs Customer Satisfied

Passangers Customer Satisfied

The given above figure 9 represents different occupation wise passengers travel by British

Airways compared with satisfaction level of customers. It is plainly evident that salaried

travellers are more compared with salaried professional and self-employed, and even satisfaction

level is also very high by salaried people. The least satisfaction level of passengers where as

salaried professional, as their expectations are high. The least percentage of travellers is self-

employed and their satisfactions from the service provided by British Airways were better off.

Table 5: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs Customer Satisfied

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Occupation wise Passengers

28.3333 3 14.57166 8.41295

Customer Satisfaction

21.6667 3 14.18920 8.19214

Paired Samples Correlations

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Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Occupation wise Passengers

28.3333 3 14.57166 8.41295

N Correlation Sig.

Pair 1 Occupation wise Passengers & Customer Satisfaction

3 .966 .167

Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

t dfSig. (2-tailed)Mean

Std. Deviatio

n

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

Pair 1

Occupation wise Passengers – Customer Satisfaction

6.66667

3.78594 2.18581 -2.73813 16.07146 3.050 2 .093

t(3) = 3.050

p = 0.093

r = 0.966

The above table speaks the rate of ‘t’ is 3.050 which is beyond the range of -1.960 to +1.960 so,

null hypothesis is not accepted, where as the rate of ‘p’ is 0.093 which is between 0 to 1 so there

is a correlation between the occupation wise passengers with customer satisfaction.

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Figure 10: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs How often Passenger Travel

OccupationPassenger

s

More than 1 time travel

More than 3 time travel

More than 5 time travel

Salaried 42 11 27 4Salaried Professional 30 7 17 6Self Employed 13 3 4 6

Salaried Salaried Professional Self Employeed0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Occupation wise Passenger Travel Vs How often Passenegr Travel

More than 1 time travel More than 3 time travel More than 5 time travel

The above figure describes different occupation wise passengers how often they travel yearly.

Salaried travel more than 3 times a year is the highest then followed by more than 1 time then the

least is more than 5 times. Salaried professional are also travel more than 3 times a year stands

on the top with nearly equal with more than 1 times year and more than 5 times a year. Self

employed speaks differently they travel more than 5 times the maximum and least with more

than 1 time travel a year.

Table 6: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs How often Passenger Travel

Paired Samples Statistics

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Table 6: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs How often Passenger Travel

Paired Samples Statistics

Table 6: Occupation Wise Passengers Travel Vs How often Passenger Travel

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Total Passengers 28.3333 3 14.57166 8.41295

More than 1 Time

7.0000 3 4.00000 2.30940

Pair 2 Total Passengers 28.3333 3 14.57166 8.41295

More than 3 times

16.0000 3 11.53256 6.65833

Pair 3 Total Passengers 28.3333 3 14.57166 8.41295

More than 5 times

5.3333 3 1.15470 .66667

Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig.

Pair 1 Total Passengers & More than 1 Time

3 .995 .063

Pair 2 Total Passengers & More than 3 times

3 1.000 .015

Pair 3 Total Passengers & More than 5 times

3 -.812 .396

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Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

T DfSig. (2-tailed)

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Mean

Std. Deviatio

n

Std. Error Mean Lower Upper

Pair 1

Total Passengers – More than 1 Time

21.33333

10.59874

6.11919 -4.99540 47.66207 3.486 2 .073

Pair 2

Total Passengers – More than 3 times

12.33333

3.05505 1.76383 4.74417 19.92250 6.992 2 .020

Pair 3

Total Passengers – More than 5 times

23.00000

15.52417

8.96289 -15.56419

61.56419 2.566 2 .124

More than 1 time travel a year

t (3) = 3.486

p = 0.073

r = 0.995

More than 3 times travel a year

t (3) = 6.992

p = 0.020

r = 1.000

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More than 5 times travel a year

t (3) = 2.566

p = 0.124

r = -0.812

Even statistical term SPSS represents all the ‘t’ rate in 3 options more than1 time travel / more

than 3 time travel and more than 5 time travel falls beyond the limit -1.960 to +1.960 so, in all

the three case null hypothesis not acceptable. Whereas the rate of ‘r’ in case of more than 3 time

travel is exactly 1 means it is strongly correlated, in case of more than 1 time travel rate is near to

1 means lightly correlated, but in case of more than 5 times travel a year is negatively correlated

as the rate (-0.812).

Figure 11: Overall Quality of Service

Overall Quality of ServicePassenger

sExcellent 38Good 27Average 8Poor 12

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45%

32%

9%14%

Overall Quality of Service

Excellent Good Average Poor

When we take a feedback from 85 passengers as per their comment the overall quality of service

provided by the British Airways and meeting the customer expectations are representing in the

above table. Out of 85 customers 65 passengers commented excellent and good quality of service

that means overall 45 percent of travellers commented as excellent quality of service then 32

percent said good service provided later 9 percent stands at average service and 14 percent stands

at poor quality of service. The British Airways need to concentrate on converting 14 percent of

poor quality service to at least to good. Now the overall percentage of good and excellent stands

at 76 percent only, to move this 76 percent to above 85 percent which is least amount to maintain

the quality of service; they need to concentrate on 14 percent said as poor service.

Table 7: Overall Quality of Service Vs Total Passengers Travelled

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Total Passengers 85.0000 4 .00000 .00000

Overall Quality of Service

21.2500 4 13.84136 6.92068

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Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Total Passengers 85.0000 4 .00000 .00000

Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig.

Pair 1 Total Passengers & Overall Quality of Service

4 .535 .

Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

t dfSig. (2-tailed)Mean

Std. Deviatio

n

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

Pair 1

Total Passengers – Overall Quality of Service

63.75000

13.84136

6.92068 41.72530 85.77470 9.212 3 .003

From the above table the rate of ‘r’ is 0.535 which represents very strong positive correlation.

Since the rate of‘t’ is 9.212 which is beyond -1.960 to +1.960, so it represents null hypothesis is

not accepted.

Figure 12: Overall Quality of Service Vs Gender

Overall Quality of Passenger Male Female

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Service sExcellent 38 23 15Good 27 17 10Average 8 5 3Poor 12 8 4

Excellent Good Average Poor0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Overall Quality of Serive Vs Gender

Passengers Male Female

Figure 12 clearly portray gender wise comments on overall quality of service provided by the

British Airways. Female customers are happier with the quality of service provided, they rated as

highest percentage as “Excellent Service” rather than Male passengers. Quality of service as

“Good “Male passengers rated with highest percentage than Female passengers.

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Table 8: Overall Quality of Service Vs Gender

Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Overall Quality of Service

21.2500 4 13.84136 6.92068

Male 13.2500 4 7.93200 3.96600

Pair 2 Overall Quality of Service

21.2500 4 13.84136 6.92068

Female 8.0000 4 7.11805 3.55903

Paired Samples Correlations

N Correlation Sig.

Pair 1 Overall Quality of Service & Male

4 .695 .305

Pair 2 Overall Quality of Service & Female

4 .934 .066

Paired Samples Test

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Paired Samples Statistics

Mean NStd.

DeviationStd. Error

Mean

Pair 1 Overall Quality of Service

21.2500 4 13.84136 6.92068

Male 13.2500 4 7.93200 3.96600

Pair 2 Overall Quality of Service

21.2500 4 13.84136 6.92068

Paired Differences

t dfSig. (2-tailed)

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Mean

Std. Deviatio

n

Std. Error Mean Lower Upper

Pair 1

Overall Quality of Service - Male

8.00000

10.09950 5.04975 -8.07057 24.07057 1.584 3 .211

Pair 2

Overall Quality of Service - Female

13.25000

7.63217 3.81608 1.10552 25.39448 0.472 3 .040

The given above table it is found that overall quality of service is positively correlated with male

and female level of expectation. The rate of ‘r’ is .211 which is very strong positively correlated

for male and for female it’s lightly positively correlated.

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Figure 13: Expected anything else form British Airways

Expect anything else from B.A

Passengers

Yes 28No 57

33%

67%

Expected anything else from B.A

Yes No

Author gathered data from British Airways passengers by analysing it 67 percent of passengers

said they are not expecting anything more or additional service from British Airways, they are

very much satisfied from the service and company met their expectations. On the other hand only

33 percent of customers are still not happy with the service that may mean that British Airways

not able to keep the promises about the services they said nor customer’s still expecting more

and more extra service to be provided.

Figure 14: Suggest British Airways to Others

Suggest B.A to othersPassenger

sYes 47No 38

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55%

45%

Suggest British Airways to others

Yes No

Author asked 85 passengers will they refer British Airways to anybody else of which 55 percent

commented as they will suggest others to travel by British Airways. And only 45 percent

travellers said they will not suggest others about British Airways.

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Discussions

In this research the author is trying to discuss and analyse the customer satisfaction levels

especially in the British Airways Limited United Kingdom. Author is bridging the gap between

customer perceptions, customer expectations and actual quality of service delivered to the

customers.

The primary aim of this research is to understand the up to what level the customers of British

Airways are satisfied with overall service quality delivered. After collecting the customer

feedback, at the Manchester Airport and Birmingham Airport, author consolidate the data come

to the conclusion that out of eighty five passengers feedback sixty five passengers commented

they are very much satisfied with the overall service provided by the British Airways. This is

clearly evident that 76 percent of the passengers said British Airways customer satisfaction is

able to meet up customer perception and expectations.

Secondary objective is to evaluate customer perception and expectation of British Airways.

Author in the research to this secondary objective, prepared questionnaire to identify the how

frequently customer are travelling year wise and different class customer travel and their

feedback, professional and age group. All the different category of people will have different

perceptions and their own expectations as per their situation demands. When author asked “more

than 5 times customer travels in a year”, of which 81 percent of customer said they are highly

satisfied with British Airways for the reason, always they will travel by only British Airways.

“More than 3 times travel a Year” also 83 percent supported positively. When author asked

Business calls travellers they commented as “British Airways is the Best”.

Third objective is “Role of quality of service that will affect the customer satisfaction”. When

author asked the overall quality of service of the British airways with wide range of travellers

they said forty five percent passengers said excellent service, thirty one percent passengers said

“Good Service”.

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The British Airways started conducting different activities to sustain the customer satisfaction or

trying to continual improvement in the quality of service.

First was top management at British Airways measure the satisfaction levels of its passengers on

all major destinations worldwide. Once in a year they conduct surveys on customer satisfaction

and analyse the feedbacks given by the customers and thus bring in changes which will enhance

continual improvement (www.Britishairways.com).

Second was to development in technology has enabled passengers with great power and

convenience as regards to online check in and e-ticketing.

Third was to up gradation has been made on service schedules for flights with long distance

destinations.

Forth was to improvement in quality of food has been made in the customized meal service

preferences on important directions; progress has been made in the process of handling

grievances from travellers for instance resolving the customer complaints within 48hours.

Fifth was to cost effective meal options have been developed. In the year 1999 British airways

has initiated the Language champions plan in London in order to highlight the current

performances between business and schools. They have come up with a unique award known as

British Airways Language Flag to encourage the students to learn different languages. It provides

self-confidence to the undergraduates to widen their capabilities which are necessary to take up

job in just an international organization but also in a firm that facilitates its staff with

Multilingual and multicultural workplace (www.Britishairways.com).

Sharad Ganjihal

Sharad Ganjihal

5. Conclusion

After detailed study, assessment and evaluation of primary and secondary data, it is significant to

underline about how the aims and objectives of the thesis work were analysed. In this section, the

author emphasise on how the specific aims and objectives of the research study were understood

and attempts to provide a response to the research question. The subdivision deals with various

limitations and recommendations of the research work and areas where there is a scope for

further research.

The research study attempts to understand and critically analyse the customer satisfaction in

airline industry with reference to British Airways. Therefore to examine this, the investigation

was executed to identify the main service determinants of British airways and based on these to

gauge the satisfaction levels of the passengers and also to evaluate the customer perception and

quality of service among travellers of British airways United Kingdom and further to emphasize

the several measures taken by them to provide excellent customer service to its customers.

The results of the study based on the in-depth review of literature, primary and secondary

sources of data available indicate that most of the passengers be it British Airways or other

airlines who fly very often and who travel by premium class are likely to travel by the same

airlines due to the excellent service and facilities provided to them. In addition to this, this

section of passengers is more attached to the brand image or reputation, world-class facilities,

better connectivity. It is also clear that these section of passengers are great source of revenue to

any airline company as they travel very often hence it is vital that British Airways focuses more

on these segment of customers to sustain in the business. Further in-depth study revealed that

customers who fly twice yearly were more concerned with the ticket fares and also few

passengers responded that they were worried about the baggage facilities and few of them

expressed security issues as an area of concern.

After closely examining the literature review it is clearly understood that airline passengers judge

the quality of flight services offered to them on the basis of prompt arrivals and departures, air

Sharad Ganjihal

fares and then based on the various facilities such as safety, food & beverages, attitude of staff,

baggage to name a few. Overall conclusion may be interpreted from the literature review,

passenger interview, feedbacks and secondary data on airline industry and British airways; it is

evident that in airline industry reaching the customer perceptions and attaining excellent

customer satisfaction is little beyond the reach of a specific airline when the competition is

worldwide. In today’s global economy people are more educated and intend to travel

internationally both for work and leisure purposes than before and they enjoy travelling to more

locations very easily and with better value of money (one world.com, media information, 2009).

Therefore, the passenger insists for better connectivity, reasonable ticket prices and improved

flight services than before. In today’s competitive world with many best alternatives available to

the customers it is very critical for the British Airways to meet the customer perceptions and

offer excellent service to reach great heights in the near future.

6. Limitations of this Research Study

The various aspects namely partial data resources, limited duration and stiff targets restricted the

thorough investigation on the research study. The main constraint of this thesis is its sample size

as the author could interview few participants only; therefore, the output of this research work

does not stand for whole population in United Kingdom.

7. Future Recommendations

In further investigation, it would be more challenging to interview the staff of British Airways to

understand the various steps adopted by them to enhance customer satisfaction and methods of

exception handling and grievances and also the author should concentrate more on the primary

data resources and should strive to gather feedback and opinions from larger population residing

in United Kingdom.

Sharad Ganjihal

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Bibliography

www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/www.britishairways.com/travel/home/public/en_gb

Sharad Ganjihal

Appendix I

Q1. Give the gender

Mail Female

Q2. Age group

< 15>15 and <30>31 and <45>45

Q3. Which class you normally travel

Economy ClassPremium EconomyBusiness ClassFirst Class

Q4. How often do you fly?

More than once in a Year More than 3 time a Year More than 5 time a year

Q5. Occupation of the passengers

SalariedSalaried professionalSelf Employed

Q6. How did you find the overall quality of services of British Airline?

ExcellentGoodAveragePoor

Q7. Is there anything else you expect from your favourite British airline

Yes

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No

Q8. Will you suggest about British Airline to anybody else

YesNo

Q9. Which airline do you prefer for domestic and for international travel? Please suggest the reasons for choosing a particular airline.

Airline preferred for domestic travel………………………Airline preferred for International travel…………………..

Reason Domestic InternationalAirline company name    In flight Services    Ticket Price    

Customer services (ease of booking, cancellation, refund)    Hospitality of crew    Food quality & variety    Brand Image    

Better Connectivity to various destinations    Customer loyalty discount programs    Special offers/ packages    Others    

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Appendix II

Figure 15: The Kano model

Source: www.iiiee.lu.se/publication.nsf

Figure 16: Five key points of customer feedback

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Source: Salvucci and Parker. National Centre for Education Statistics. Customer Satisfaction Report.

Figure 16: Most Travelled seating class by UK Business travellers in 2007

Source : Benner. J., 2009. The Airline Customer Loyalty Model.

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Figure 16: Service Quality Ring

Source : Berry and Zeithaml. Improving Service Quality.

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Figure 16: Operational improvements must support strengthened customer relations for airline.

Source: IBM Institute for Business Value

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