Key Factors Affecting Thai Passengers to Select Low Cost ...
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Soochow University
Global Business Program, School of Business
Thesis
Key Factors Affecting Thai Passengers to
Select Low Cost Airline
Student:MANANYA SRIWORRARAT 徐雅玲
Advisor:Dr. Chih-Ming Lee (李智明)
July 2016
Key Factors Affecting Thai Passengers to
Select Low Cost Airline
A Thesis
Submitted to
Soochow University
in partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Master of Business Administration
In
Global Business Program
By
MANANYA SRIWORRARAT (徐雅玲)
Global Business program, School of business, Soochow University
July, 2016
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Abstract
In the past few years, global airline industry has grown dramatically, and low cost
airline obviously become prosperous and gains enormous market shares of the airline
travelling. Furthermore, low cost airline in Thailand has increased their competitiveness
rapidly and earned significant market share from full service airline. The purpose of this
study is to find the key factors affecting Thai passengers to select low cost airlines, and we
hope that the results of this study could serve as a guideline for the managers of Thai low cost
airline to effectively develop their marketing strategies in order to gain the competitive
advantage and meet passenger’s satisfaction. A framework with four dimensions and 19
factors influencing passenger’s selection of low cost airlines were derived by literature
review. Then, a questionnaire of AHP was designed and a questionnaire survey of Thai
passengers was done. Next, AHP methodology was applied to obtain the priority of
importance of these dimensions and factors. We found that the rank of importance of
dimensions is: airline corporate, service quality, flight management, and airline aircraft. As
for the rank of importance of 19 factors is: price, punctuality, safety record, reliability,
responsiveness, flight availability, comfort, cleanliness, brand image, promotion and
advertising, empathy, flight announcement, service supply chain, tangible, assurance,
facilities, flight compensation, alliance, and entertainment, respectively. Further, we
compared our results with those of other papers. Finally, we make suggestions to both Thai
low cost airlines and Thai government.
Keywords: Low Cost Airline, LCA, Low Cost Carrier, LCC, Budget Airline, No-Frill Airline,
Analytical Hierarchy Process, AHP, Decision Making Model.
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Acknowledgement
This master thesis has been written for global business program, in the department of
business administration of Soochow University, Taiwan. It will not be completed and
perfected if there are no assists from these important people.
First of all, I would like to raise the full credit and give thanks to my thesis advisor
Dr. Chih-Ming Lee (李智明), who is the most important person that has been supporting me
at large with the fully good suggestions from his various qualified ability and his greatly
patience throughout this thesis process for more than a half past year long. In addition, I
would also like to acknowledge the defense committee members, including, Dr. Jin-Shyang
Roan (阮金祥) and Dr. Ji-Chyuan Liou (劉基全), the two important persons who are willing
to dedicate their valuable time participating in my oral defense examination so as to listen
and provide me the precious opinions and good suggestions for making my work done
completely.
Secondly, I want to give thanks for 中華扶輪教育基金會 (Chung Hwa Rotary
Educational Foundation), 雙連扶輪社 (Shuanglian Rotary Club), Rose Wu, and C.T. Wu,
who have subsidized me a large number of educational scholarship, as well as, Dean of GBP
(詹乾隆教授) who offered me the good opportunity to get this fund. I also would like to give
thanks for global business program of Soochow University that offers and provides me the
qualified course arrangement, professional teachers, and lovely classmates. Moreover, I
intend to be thankful for Serena Chiang, the secretary of global business program, who
always stand by me with various kinds of supportive all every step during I have educated for
my graduate study here, as well as, thanks to all Taiwanese and Vietnamese friends who
make my days when I have stayed in Taiwan.
Lastly, I am grateful to Porntipa-Manu Sriworrarat, my super mother and father, the best
parents who never let me walk alone. They always stand besides, encourage, support,
subsidize, and give the worthy of love and care for me all the time of studying and living in
Taiwan, and all steps of my life. As well as, I would like to be thankful for my best younger
and elder brothers, Suppanai (the younger brother), Suppanan, and Supanart (the elder
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brothers) Sriworrarat, who also provide the great encouragements, great supports, and great
suggestions to me every time since we have been being brother and sister of full blood.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... i
Acknowledgement ..................................................................................................................... ii
Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... iv
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. v
List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... vi
Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background and Motivation ....................................................................................... 1
1.2 Purposes of the Research ............................................................................................ 6
1.3 Research Process ........................................................................................................ 7
Chapter 2 Literature Review ...................................................................................................... 9
2.1 Papers Related to Airline Service ............................................................................... 9
2.2 A Hierarchical Framework of Key Factors .............................................................. 18
2.3 Papers Related to the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) ........................................ 22
Chapter 3 Methodology of Analytic Hierarchy Process .......................................................... 26
3.1 The Principle of AHP ............................................................................................... 26
3.2 The Process of AHP ................................................................................................. 27
3.3 The Advantages of AHP ........................................................................................... 38
3.4 The Applications of AHP ......................................................................................... 38
Chapter 4 Results of Survey and Discussion ........................................................................... 41
4.1 Personal Information of Thai Passengers ................................................................. 41
4.2 Results of Questionnaire ........................................................................................... 47
4.3 The Comparisons of Results with Those of Other Papers ........................................ 72
5.1 The Summary of Results .......................................................................................... 82
5.2 Suggestions for Related Organizations ..................................................................... 83
5.3 Research Limits and Future Development ............................................................... 92
References ................................................................................................................................ 94
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List of Tables
Table 1.1 Total Number of Passengers and LCA Passengers 2010-2014 ............................. 5
Table 1.2 LCA Market Shares by Passenger Volume (Fiscal Year 2013) ............................ 6
Table 2.1 Summary of Literature Review of Factors in LCA Selection ............................. 16
Table 2.2 The Definitions of Dimensions and Factors ........................................................ 20
Table 3.1 A Pair Wise Comparison Measurement Scale .................................................... 30
Table 3.2 The Pair Wise Comparison Table on 4 Elements................................................ 31
Table 3.3 The Result of Pair Wise Comparison Matrix ...................................................... 31
Table 3.4 Average Random Consistency Index (R.I. Value) .............................................. 36
Table 3.5 The Applications of AHP .................................................................................... 39
Table 4.1 Summary of Thai Passengers’ Demographic Characteristics ............................. 42
Table 4.2 The Weights and Ranks of Dimensions and Factors ........................................... 48
Table 4.3 Score and Rank for Factors in the Review Papers .............................................. 72
Table 4.4 The Results of Comparison with Those of Other Papers ................................... 76
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List of Figures
Figure 1.1 Air Passenger Movements 2008-2015 ................................................................. 3
Figure 1.2 Research Process………………………………………………………………..8
Figure 2.1 A Hierarchical Framework of Key Factors Affecting Thai Passengers to Select
LCA ..................................................................................................................................... 19
Figure 3.1 Decision Hierarchy (Saaty, 1980) ...................................................................... 29
Figure 4.1 The Frequency of Catching Air Transportation ................................................. 45
Figure 4.2 The Main Purpose of Taking Flight ................................................................... 46
Figure 4.3 The Number of Passengers Who Travel on LCA .............................................. 47
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Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background and Motivation
Undoubtedly, transportation plays an important role in human daily lives. In
particular, air transportation is already necessary in travelling whether for leisure or for
business, in terms of convenience, timeliness, and safety.
Airline industry is considered as an important branch of air transportation. It is a
typical service industry, being a part of aviation industry and focusing on moving people and
cargo from one location to another. Airline industry is divided into three main sections: Full
Service Airline (FSA), Low Cost Airline (LCA), and Charter Airline (CA) (Keyne, 2009).
In former times, airline industry has gone through a significant remodeling in its
structure. The competition in the airline industry is very intense. Currently, this strong
competition forces the whole industry to rethink their marketing strategy to meet the demand
of customers. Therefore, all airlines need to try hard to increase profit.
The airline industry in Thailand has continuously grown. However, it is controlled by
government’s regulations and policies. The beginning of airline industry in Thailand can be
traced back to the year of 1933, since KLM airline, a foreign commercial airline from
Netherland, first flew and transited to Don Mueang International Airport, the previous main
airfield of Thailand. The current main airfield is Suvarnabhumi International Airport, because
the limitation of space in Don Mueang area.
Later on, Thai government established Thai Airways Company (TAC) as the first
domestic flag airline in 1947, registered capital of 20 million THB. Moreover, in 1960, Thai
Airways International Public Company Limited (THAI), was established as a joint venture
between TAC and Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS). Scandinavian carrier provided
capital of two million THB and owned 30% share of THAI. However, in 1977, TAC
purchased 30% share from SAS with Thai government consensus, therefore THAI has
become a national flagship airline of Thailand since then.
Nowadays, there are 28 domestic airports and 6 international airports in Thailand.
Furthermore, there are more than 500 airlines serviced in Thailand. In 2014, Airports of
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Thailand (AOT) served a total of 11 domestic airlines and 126 international airlines, and 126
passenger airlines and 11 cargo airlines. The main carriers serving in Thailand are THAI,
Thai Air Asia, and Nok Air. THAI dominated as the lead player of airline industry in
Thailand, by gaining 35% market share in 2015.
Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) of Thailand indicated that the total number of
registered commercial aircrafts in Thailand was 288 trunks. Moreover, the data from AOT in
2014 reported that there were 624,169 aircrafts movement, increasing 7.17% compared with
last year.
Thailand is known as one of the world’s top travel destinations. Thai government has
thoroughly realized that airline industry has been an important infrastructure of travel
industry sector, as it brings a tremendous amount of money into Thailand annually.
In 2014, the Minister of Tourism and Sports stated that even though Thailand had to
face an anti-government conflict in the first half year, and the toppled government of Prime
Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the revenue from tourism was 1.13 trillion THB. Both the data
from DOT and Thailand Transport Portal in the same year showed that the number of air
passengers reached more than 90 million persons, including 52 million international
passengers and 38 million domestic passengers, respectively. The average number of
passenger movements was approximately 70 million, which increased every year, shown in
Figure 1.1. Thailand is considered as one of the largest countries in the Asian and one of the
fast growing markets globally (Qin, 2012).
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Figure 1.1 Air Passenger Movements 2008-2015
Source: Airport of Thailand (AOT), 2015
In the same year, data from Board of Investment (BOI) in Thailand indicated that
airline and aviation related industries contributed 1.5% of GDP. Data from State Enterprise
Policy Office (SEPO) of Thailand also supported that the revenue from airline industry
counted as 33% of transportation industry, and the main player was THAI.
Therefore, Thai government has been continuously promoting and supporting the
domestic airline industry especially in the deregulation of airline industry and the opening
sky policy in 1988, its purpose is to encourage the competition in airline industry since more
local airlines and foreign airlines have been allowed to fly in Thailand than before. However,
Thai government still supports national airlines by restricting the domestic airline business
for local air carriers and subsidizing fund to Thai airline industry sector.
The data from Bureau of the Budget of Thailand in 2015 showed that Thai
government invested a lot money in airline industry and related field for almost 2 billion
THB, in which 0.3 billion THB for promoting the air transportation, 1.4 billion THB and 0.2
billion THB for developing airports and employees, respectively, and it aims to increase the
number of new airline employees up to 1,196 persons. According to BOI, in 2014, the
average employee of air services generated 1,321,883 THB in GVA (gross value added),
which was 5.5 times more productive than the average employee of service industry in
Thailand.
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Because of that, airline industry in Thailand has grown in the good trend every year,
in particularly, the emerging of new airline business model, Low Cost Airline (LCA).
Low Cost Airline (LCA) is an airline that differentiates itself in the market through
reduced ticket price (Civil Aviation Authority, 2006), lower than competitors through a
variety of strategies such as fuel efficiency, and careful management of revenue and yield.
The LCA business model is a new business model, which comes from the general business
model of airlines (Sabre, 2010), Full Service Airline (FSA) business model. The difference
between LCA and FSA includes fare structure, distribution channel, limited service levels,
and difference types of flight aircrafts and passengers. However, the LCA has been proven to
be a strong competitor against the FSA.
LCA was first introduced by Southwest Airline (SWA) in the United States in 1971.
The success of SWA led to the spread of the model to Europe and then to Asia. It competed
by offering lower fares than those of full service airline (Qin, 2012).
Due to the deregulation of domestic airline industry in 2001, Thailand government
allowed local LCAs to operate in the country. In December 2003, low-cost airlines started
coming out in Thailand, e.g., One-Two-Go was the first LCA, rebranded as Orient Thai
Airline in July 2010. Just one year later, three Thai LCAs emerged in the same year. Solar
Air head office is in Bangkok. Its base was in Don Mueang International Airport. Thai Air
Asia, a joint venture between Air Asia (Malaysia) and Shin Corp (Thailand), flew in February
later on. Nok Air, the budget airline of Thai Airways, started the operation in July. Moreover,
in May 2015, Nok Air, and Singapore based Scoot, affiliated the joint venture to launch
NokScoot, a low-cost medium to long-haul airline started commercial flights out of Don
Mueang International Airport in May 2015. Nowadays, there were about 30 LCAs serving in
Thailand, in which regional LCAs were 10 players. Besides, in October 2012, AOT moved
most of the LCA from Suvarnabhumi Airport to Don Mueang International Airport.
The data from IATA in 2012 showed that airline industry in Asia was striving and
forecasted to face deficit of 3 billion dollars. However, some LCA could survive in this
situation. The data from Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) in 2014
showed that despite air traffic in Thailand was suffered from the worldwide economy and
political confusion, which exploring since October, 2013, the economy was recovered by the
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booming of low cost airlines. Besides, LCA in Thailand has become as a popular choice for
domestic travelling, hence this pushed demand for domestic leisure travel to increase sharply.
Moreover, LCA in Thailand dramatically increased their competitiveness, gaining
significant market share from FSA. According to the IATA 2014, Thai airlines have become
competitive during 2009 to 2013, in line with global trends, with 9% revenue growth of all
Thai airlines, which 31.5% of revenue growth came from LCA while 6.9% from FSA, 61.6%
from other airline services, and it proved that the LCAs has increased their market share of
Thailand.
The growing rate in the number of passengers who flew with LCA was faster than the
growth rate in the number of all passengers. In 2013, passengers on LCA grew by 29%
compared with a 16% growth in the total number of passengers transported by all airlines in
Thailand (TRIS, 2014).
Furthermore, in the first 10 months of 2014, the total number of passengers of LCA in
the six international airports in Thailand reached 28.3 million. Moreover, passenger of LCAs
increased from 25.2% of all passengers in 2010 to 38.8% in 2014 shown in Table 1.1. From
the fact above, FSA faced a significant challenge as they compete with the LCAs.
Table 1.1 Total Number of Passengers and LCA Passengers 2010-2014
Source: TRIS, 2014
For LCA sector, Thai Air Asia is the biggest airline, gained a half of market share of
LCA market, followed by Nok Air with 33.98 % market share. Moreover, the player from
Malaysia based airline, Air Asia Berhad, gained 3.07 % market share shown in Table 1.2.
Moreover, the top 3 LCA in the year of 2015 are the same as the data from Center for (Asia
Pacific) Aviator (CAPA).
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Table 1.2 LCA Market Shares by Passenger Volume (Fiscal Year 2013)
Source: TRIS 2014
Market segmentation of LCA is different from FSA, and among LCA in foreign
country and Thailand. Each LCAs in Thailand focuses on different sub-market segmentation.
Air Asia targets at price-sensitive passengers. Nok Air focuses on higher segment. One-Two
Go occupies the lowest segment (Komsan, 2006).
However, the main target group is the price sensitive passengers. The strategy of the
lower fare allows lower income people to fly more frequently, especially, for the company
employee group, and short length route traveler group, e.g., businessmen and leisure
travelers.
Recently, ASEAN Open Sky policy comes into force and airlines are free to set up
operations within the 10-member group countries in 2015. This policy is likely to create
greater competition and even more financial challenges for local airlines and attracted more
LCAs to come to Thailand (Qin, 2012). Therefore, the competition among airlines will
become more intense, and it is important to find the key factors affecting customer’s choice
of LCAs.
1.2 Purposes of the Research
Nowadays, air transportation is essential in human daily lives since it is convenience,
timeliness, and safety. In the previous time, air transportation was an expensive alternative of
travelling because of high price. However, air transportation carriers have already changed
their marketing strategies and have been trying to moderate the costs to touch consumer
needs.
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Low Cost Airline, LCA, has become popular and started gaining market shares in the
airline business. LCA business in Asia has rapidly grown recent year. Despite significant
development of some airlines, overall situation of business was not promising due to
economic crisis that affects both domestic and international transportation (Nochais, 2014).
However, According to the ASEAN Open Sky policy in 2015, this policy will attract
more LCAs to come to Thailand and compete with local Thai airlines (Qin, 2012). Hence,
Thai low cost airline players are no longer able to use only low price strategies to maintain
their profitability and gain the competitive advantage. Therefore, they need to determinedly
find other effective strategies to win this competition.
The main focus of this research is to investigate the key factors affecting Thai
passengers to select low cost airline. We hope the outcomes of this research could help LCA
in Thailand to develop their marketing strategies effectively.
The purposes of this research are as follows:
1. What are the key factors affecting passengers to select LCA?
2. What are the weights (priorities) of the key factors affecting passengers?
3. How to use the outcome to help LCA in Thailand to develop their marketing strategies?
4. Compare the outcome of this research with those of other papers.
1.3 Research Process
1. Background and motivation of this study: Describe the background of the development of
airline industry and low cost airline business in Thailand.
2. Literature review: Two kinds of papers are discussed. One is related to the factors affecting
passenger to select LCA, the other is related to the applications of AHP.
3. AHP framework: Investigate the key factors affecting Thai passengers to select LCA, and
build the hierarchical framework of factors.
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4. Questionnaire design and survey: According to AHP framework of factors, we design a
suitable questionnaire, then do the questionnaire survey.
5. Data processing and analysis: After the questionnaire has been distributed and collected,
AHP will be applied to analyze the results of questionnaire.
6. Conclusion: Summarize the results of questionnaire, and make suggestions to Thai low
cost airline industry and government.
The research process is as follows.
Define the Problem
Literature Review
Build a Hierarchy of Factors
of AHP
Design Questionnaire
Distribute Questionnaire and
Collect Data
Analyze Data
Draw Conclusions
Figure 1.2 Research Process
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Papers Related to Airline Service
From the data of Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS, 2014)
described that the number of passengers in Thailand has increased from 2010 with 58.2
million people to 2014 with 72.8 million, about 10 million people annually. Moreover, the
number of low cost airline passengers increased quite rapid, with 14.7 million people to 28.3
million people, and the growth rate was in double digit in only a few years. For these four
years, the proportion of low cost airline which rose from 25.2%, about the quarter of total
passengers, to 38.8%, about more than 1/3 of total passengers. From the facts above, it could
be explained that airline industry, especially, the low cost airline in Thailand has been in the
good trend.
Qin (2012) studied the passengers of low cost airline, in Bangkok to find the factors
influencing passenger’s satisfaction and loyalty. The data was collected by distributing
questionnaire to the LCA passengers in Don Mueang International Airport and used Multiple
Regression Analysis to analyze the results. The result founded that service marketing mix
dimensions (7P’s: product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence)
and service quality dimensions (tangible, assurance, empathy, responsiveness, and reliability)
affect customer satisfaction. They showed that six of the service marketing mix dimensions,
including product, price, people, promotion, physical evidence, and process, and four of the
service quality dimensions, including reliability, responsiveness, tangible, and empathy, are
important. Moreover, customer satisfaction also affected customer loyalty.
Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013) studied the attitude and needs of Thai passengers
when selecting domestic low-cost airlines. Their research methodology included Random
Convenience Sampling Technique using questionnaire to gather data, and T-test, One way
Analysis of Variance, and Turkey’s Multiple Comparison Method. They investigated
demographic dimensions (gender, age, education level, monthly income, and occupation) and
the dimensions of 7P’s. The results showed that demographic dimensions do not affect the
selection. However, the dimensions of 7P’s affect customer’s attitude and needs in selecting
domestic LCA. The rank of dimensions is place, product, physical evidence, people, process,
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price, and promotion. They further described the 22 factors under the dimensions of 7P’s.
Under the dimension of place, 3 important factors are convenience in term of ticket
availability and payment, call center for providing advices and 24-hour reservation, and
sufficient distributor. Under the dimension of product, 2 important factors are reliability of
airlines aviation background in term of safety, and availability of flight schedules. The 5
important factors under dimension of physical evidence focused on politeness and
friendliness of check-in staff, accuracy and speed of check-in process, well-arranged and
comfortable seats on board, well-organized, convenient, and quick documentation, and
sufficient and easy-to-use shelf space for baggage. The 3 important factors under people
dimension are friendly cabin crews, service-minded cabin crews, and the problem-solving
ability of cabin crews. For process dimension, the rank of 3 important factors is convenience
and speed of check-in process, convenience of luggage claim, and delivery of service quality.
While 3 factors under the price dimension are reasonable fare compared with service, various
levels of fare, and affordable fare compared with other airlines. The 3 important factors in the
promotion dimension are special fare on continuous basis, promotion such as privilege,
mileage program, transportation service, and advertising through various media.
In the same year, they also studied Thai LCA passengers’ satisfaction by using the
same demographic and 7P’s dimensions. A Random Convenience Sampling Technique with
questionnaire surveys was used to collect data. Two Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA),
and Multiple Comparison of Duncan were used to analyze data. The result implied that both
of the dimensions affect passenger satisfaction. While two most influencing factors of the
demographic dimensions are gender (male is higher than female) and education (bachelor is
higher), while the priority of important dimensions on 7P’s is place, product (are the top two
similar to the previous study), following by process, people, physical evidence, price, and
promotion (the two bottom ranking factors similar to the previous study), which affected
passenger satisfaction. In addition, they also described 10 factors under the 4P’s (place,
product, promotion, and process): a call center for providing advice and 24-hour reservation,
convenience in terms of ticket availability and payment, easy to find and convenient to
contact location of the ticket office, the overall performance of on the ground service, the
safety aircraft, promotion such as privilege, mileage program, to load more baggage, sales
techniques with a wide variety of formats, convenience and speed of check-in process,
convenience and speed of baggage claim, and convenience and speed of preparing for flight
departure.
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Nochais (2014) studied 390 Thai LCA passengers. The methodology of this paper
consisted of, questionnaire survey to collect data, and Logistic Regression Analysis to find
important factors under 7P’s. There are 30 factors under 7P’s: (1) airline’s reputation, (2)
comfortable, safety, and secure, (3) available flights schedule, (4) available routes and
destinations, (5) suitable ticket prices and fares, (6) cheaper ticket prices and fares, (7) clarity
of ticket price and fares Information, (8) no additional charges, (9) various ticket channel
distributions, (10) ease of ticket purchase, (11) ease of reservation via website, (12) various
payment methods, (13) attractive sale promotion campaign, (14) advertising and public
relation, (15) website for providing information, (16) call center for providing advices, (17)
friendliness of cabin crew, (18) friendliness of ground staffs, (19) cabin crew/staffs presence
through flight, (20) professionalism of captain, (21) speed of check-in process, (22) flight’s
punctuality, (23) speed of baggage delivery, (24) assistance during boarding, (25) new
modern aircraft, (26) beautiful interior cabin/aircraft, (27) cabin cleanliness, (28) cabin seat
comfort, (29) toilet cleanliness, (30) staff grooming. However, only 9 important factors affect
passengers in selecting LCA, and the rank of these factors is advertising and public relation
(under the dimension of promotion), friendliness of cabin crew (under the dimension of
people), call center for providing advices (under the dimension of promotion), no additional
charges (under the dimension of price), new modern aircraft (under the dimension of physical
evidence), cheaper ticket prices and fares (under the dimension of price), airline’s reputation
(under the dimension of product), cabin seat comfort (under the dimension of physical
evidence), and attractive promotion campaign (under the dimension of promotion).
Nejati et al. (2008) wanted to review and rank service quality factors for the airline
industry in Iranian society. Fuzzy TOPSIS approach was used and information was obtained
through questionnaire. The results showed the rank of 21 factors is flight safety, good
appearance of flight crew, and offering highest possible quality services to customers 24
hours a day (which above are the three most important factors), friendly and helping
behavior of flight crew toward passengers, proper transfer and delivery of luggage and cargo,
availability of enough flight staffs and crew, comfortable chairs with sufficient space for
sitting, proper food services during the flight, availability of an up-to-date internet web site
for responding to customers’ questions and requests, clean rest-rooms in the airplanes, the
possibility of booking and buying a ticket through internet, the speed of offering services by
flight crew, without delay flights, providing sufficient flight information during flight,
sufficient number of information and service offices in the cities, seriousness in solving
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passengers’ problems and facilitating the process of meeting their need, avoiding flight
cancellation, providing up-to-date newspapers, magazines, and video films during the flight,
quick announcement of flight schedules and the availability of alternative flights in case of
delay or cancellation, quick response to passengers’ needs and requests during the flight by
flight crew and the possibility of checking flight schedule via telephone.
Saha (2009) examined the relationships among service quality, satisfaction, and
behavioral intentions. A sample of 1,212 passengers who had travelled on LCA in Thailand is
surveyed and using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyzed the data. The study
indicated that flight attendance, ground staff, word of mouth, repurchase intention, customer
satisfaction, feedback, tangible, and schedule are the favorable factors that affect LCA
passenger behavioral intention. In addition, the study found that the priority of factors under
service quality is flight schedules, flight attendants, tangibles, and ground staff, which also
have a strong capability of prediction in behavioral intention.
Ariffin et al. (2010) examined five dimensions of service quality (caring and tangible,
reliability, responsiveness, affordability, and visual attractiveness) to predict the passenger
satisfaction for LCA. A total number of 125 questionnaires were distributed and Multiple
Regression Analyses were performed to simultaneously investigate the influence of the
dimensions on passenger satisfaction. The results revealed that caring and tangible dimension
was the only significant dimension to predict passenger satisfaction of service quality.
Besides, the priority of nine factors under this dimension is the level of knowledge of
employees, in responding to passenger’s questions, the comfort of the airline’s seat, level of
communication regarding unusual circumstances, degree of kindness of employees,
flexibility of the tickets purchased, professionalism in handling the luggage, degree of trust
transmitted to the passengers, employee’s overall appearance, and the behavior of fellow
traveler.
Ha (2010) studied the best consumer choice model from 5 different models of no frill
airline industry, including general compensatory, general no compensatory, simple additive,
conjunctive, and disjunctive models. This paper used conjoint analysis methodology to
identify consumers’ choice models and separate logistic regression to run for each of the five
different choice models. A questionnaire survey of 124 post graduate students with
experience of no frill airline was performed. The research found that conjunctive model was
the most robust model. Furthermore, it also investigated 14 factors under this model, and
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found that price, value for money, no delay, availability, refund, past experience, trust, safety,
advertising, brand reputation, loyalty program, comfort, WOM, and kindness of staff, were
the important factors influencing passenger’s choice in no frills airline.
Yeoh and Chan (2011) investigated the important factors under six dimensions of
service attributes, service delivery, the participation in service delivery, mood state, crowd,
and price, which may influence customer’s repeat purchase intension for Malaysian LCA.
They use semi-structured interview for data collection from 20 Malaysian leisure air travelers
who have travelled on LCA within the destinations in Malaysia. The result revealed that price
is the most significant influential factor. Moreover, on time departure and arrival (under the
service delivery dimension), cleanliness of cabin and washroom, and a comfortable seat
during the whole journey (under the service attribute dimension), are considered as the three
most important factors influencing repeat purchase behavior of LCA passengers. The authors
also considered that customers’ mood state and the crowd are essential factors influencing
repeat purchase behavioral in term of consumption experience.
Sarker et al. (2012) tried to forecast the sustainability and future growth of low cost
carriers. Split halves technique on piloting was used for research methodology and data was
collected by interview and questionnaire survey both in industry specialists and customers of
165 respondents. The result found that low fare was an important factor for success and
survival of LCA, branding and customer service was an important factor for sustainability,
unbundled cost model and outsourcing was the way to pass recession, and alliance with
networks was an advantageous to LCA for international passengers travelling on domestic
routes with a rise in market share for LCA.
Sokolovskyy (2012) investigated which factors impact students’ choice of either low
cost or full service airline. Questionnaire survey was used to collect data. Method used to
analyzed data including Factor Analysis, Multicollinearity Check, and Binary Logistic
Regression. The paper studied seven factors, including price, service reliability, flight
availability, quality of service, gender, citizen, and FFP (frequent flyer program). The
researcher found that the two most significant factors influencing passenger’s preference to
select LCC than FCC composed of service quality (seating comfort and seat space and
legroom) and citizen. Moreover, there are four significant factors that impact the selection of
low cost carrier, including service quality factor (for example seating comfort, seat space and
legroom, meal service, and in-flight entertainment services), flight availability factor (loyalty
14
program discounts/rewards, and convenient flight schedule), price factor (ticket prices, and
availability of nonstop flight), and FFP.
Hamidi et al. (2013) aimed to identify and prioritized the main dimensions and factors
that influence travelers in the choice of domestic flight. A total number of 145 individuals
from the travelers of Iranian domestic airlines on the route between Tehran and Mashhad,
were randomly selected to do the questionnaire survey. The One-sample T-test, Wilcoxon
Signed-Rank Test and the Kruskal-Wallis Test were used to analyze the data. The findings
suggested that all five studied dimensions affect the travelers' decision regarding airline
selection, and the priority of dimensions is flight safety, flight schedule, flight management,
on-board services, and airline’s company image. While the rank of 27 factors (under the 5
dimensions) include flight comfort, proper announcement about flight cancellations and
delays, crew's ability to handle unexpected situations, lost luggage returning and
compensation, modern fleet, special services for senior citizens and people with physical
disabilities, timely flights, the number of flight accidents recorded for the airline company,
proper flight times, aircraft type, crew's responsibility, direct and non-stop flight, easy and
convenient booking , proper service in case of delay, the possibility of learning about the
flight schedule through Interactive Voice Response (IVR), food and drink quality, seat
comfort, transportation services at the departing location and the destination, crew's delivery
speed, the number of flights per week , loyalty programs, crew's appearance, airline
company's image, the possibility of carrying more luggage, airline company's social
activities, personal interest, and in-flight entertainment.
Wen and Chi (2013) examined how customers’ justice judgment and consumption
emotions affecting customer satisfaction after service recovery. A questionnaires survey were
given out to more than 600 delayed flight passengers at Baiyun international airport, China.
SEM methodology was applied to test 5 important dimensions of justice and emotions areas,
including interactional justice dimension (airline personnel’s honesty, politeness,
respectfulness, patience, effort, and fair treatment of customers), procedural justice dimension
(the airline providing timely service recovery, flexible to customers’ needs, respecting
customers’ right to information, and providing accurate information, and customers’ overall
feeling of the service recovery process), distributive justice dimension (the airline sincerely
apologizing to customers, taking effective measures to minimize customer problems,
providing an adequate remedy and fair compensations to customers, and customers’ overall
15
feeling of the service recovery outcomes), positive emotions dimension (pleased, happy,
relaxed, and excited), negative emotions dimension (disappointed, angry, regretful and
annoyed). The findings showed that rank of dimensions affecting service recovery
satisfaction was procedural justice, interactional justice, distributive justice, positive
emotions, and negative emotions.
Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong (2013) tried to find which factors have the greatest
potential to improve the performance of low-cost and full-service carriers. Data Envelopment
Analysis (DEA) was used to determine the most efficient airlines in transforming their
resources into good quality services. The result found that the top five most efficient factors
affecting LCA performance include (1) infrastructural quality factors, such as staff service
efficiency, staff language skills, staff enthusiasm, cabin presence through flight, and
consistency among staff, (2) service supply chain quality factors, such as check-in, arrival
service, and baggage delivery, (3) structural quality factors, such as seat comfort, in-flight
entertainment, meals, cabin cleanliness, and washroom cleanliness, (4) operation expense
factors, such as flight operations, maintenance, passenger service, aircraft service, promotion
and sales, and general administrative expenses, (5) labor cost factors, such as salaries of
pilots and co-pilots, trainees and instructors, ground personnel, and flight attendants, and
personnel benefits.
Khuong and Uyen (2014) studied the factors affecting passenger satisfaction toward
Vietnam airline. Quantitative method was carried out with a sample size of 300 respondents
who travelled with Vietnam Airlines. Pearson Product-moment Correlation and KMO
(Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) and Bartlett’s Test are used to test the suitability of current data for
Factor Analyses. The results indicated that eight priority factors are image, employee’s
service factor, service quality, baggage service, timeliness, ground service, safety, and
facility, and all have a strong relation with passenger’s satisfaction.
Lerrthaitrakul and Panjakajornsak (2014) wanted to identify and investigate channel
factors of electronic Word Of Mouth (eWOM), including one to one, one to many, and many
to many channel factors that affect consumer buying decision- making process in the LCA
market. The data was collected from participants who purchasing their LCA ticket. They used
online questionnaire and Regression Analysis to analyze data. The results from this study
indicated that the eWOM played an important role in consumer buying decision- making
process, and one to many and many to many channel are the two significant channel factors.
16
Buaphiban (2015) examined the factors that influencing the airline passengers to
select LCA in Thailand. A large scale of questionnaire was sent to 781 Thai LCA passengers
at major airports in Thailand. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was conducted. The nine
factors in this paper are airline reputation, attitude, subjective norm, perceive behavior
control, price, service quality, airline safety, route available and convenience, and FFP.
Factors like service quality, airline reputation, and subjective norms play a significant role in
the choice of LCAs over full service carriers (FSCs). Moreover, there are five priority factors
influencing passenger in LCA selection including subjective norm, perceive behavioral
control, price, airline service quality, and airline reputation.
Atalik and Ozdemir (2015) investigated factors affecting purchase decision of
domestic airline passenger. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was performed to specify the
factors. A sample of 387 domestic passengers in Turkey through online questionnaires was
conducted. The research founded that price, advertising and promotion activities
(advertisement, cooperate image, call center, FFP, and website), operational specialists
(schedule, flight connection, baggage, and punctuality), comfort issue (catering, cabin
technology, and shuttle) are prioritized that affect the purchase decision of domestic airline
passenger.
Table 2.1 Summary of Literature Review of Factors in LCA Selection
Factor Related papers
Brand image
Ha (2010), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Saha (2009),
Ariffin et al. (2010), Hamidi et al. (2013), Khuong and Uyen (2014),
Lerrthaitrakul and Panjakajornsak (2014), Buaphiban (2015), Atalik and
Ozdemir (2015), Sarker et al. (2012)
Safety record
Ariffin et al. (2010), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014),
Nejati et al. (2008), Sokolovskyy (2012), Hamidi et al. (2013), Khuong
and Uyen (2014), Buaphiban (2015)
Service supply
chain
Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Nejati et al.
(2008), Ariffin et al. (2010), Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong (2013), Khuong
and Uyen (2014), Atalik and Ozdemir (2015)
Price Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Saha
17
Factor Related papers
(2009), Yeoh and Chan (2011), Sokolovskyy (2012), Buaphiban (2015),
Atalik and Ozdemir (2015), Sarker et al. (2012)
Alliance Sarker et al. (2012)
Promotion and
advertising
Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014),
Sokolovskyy (2012), Hamidi et al. (2013), Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong
(2013), Buaphiban (2015), Atalik and Ozdemir (2015)
Reliability
Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Nejati et al.
(2008), Saha (2009), Hamidi et al. (2013), Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong
(2013), Khuong and Uyen (2014), Wen and Chi (2013), Buaphiban (2015)
Tangible
Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Nejati et
al. (2008), Saha (2009), Ariffin et al. (2010), Hamidi et al. (2013), Khuong
and Uyen (2014), Wen and Chi (2013)
Empathy Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nejati et al. (2008), Saha
(2009), Khuong and Uyen (2014), Wen and Chi (2013)
Responsiveness
Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Nejati et al.
(2008), Saha (2009), Ariffin et al. (2010), Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong
(2013), Khuong and Uyen (2014), Sarker et al. (2012), Wen and Chi
(2013)
Assurance
Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Nejati et al.
(2008), Saha (2009), Ariffin et al. (2010), Hamidi et al. (2013), Yayla-
Kullu and Tansitpong (2013), Khuong and Uyen (2014)
Punctuality
Qin (2012), Nochais (2014), Nejati et al. (2008), Saha (2009), Yeoh and
Chan (2011), Sokolovskyy (2012), Hamidi et al. (2013), Khuong and
Uyen (2014), Buaphiban (2015), Atalik and Ozdemir (2015),
Flight
availability Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Nejati et al.
(2008), Saha (2009), Sokolovskyy (2012), Hamidi et al. (2013),
18
Factor Related papers
Buaphiban (2015), Atalik and Ozdemir (2015)
Flight
compensation Hamidi et al. (2013), Wen and Chi (2013)
Flight
announcement
Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nejati et al. (2008), Ariffin
et al. (2010), Hamidi et al. (2013),
Cleanliness Qin (2012), Nochais (2014), Nejati et al. (2008), Yeoh and Chan (2011),
Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong (2013)
Comfort
Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Nochais
(2014), Nejati et al. (2008), Saha (2009), Ariffin et al. (2010), Yeoh and
Chan (2011), Sokolovskyy (2012), Hamidi et al. (2013), Yayla-Kullu and
Tansitpong (2013)
Entertainment Qin (2012), Sokolovskyy (2012), Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong (2013),
Khuong and Uyen (2014), Hamidi et al. (2013)
Facilities
Qin (2012), Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013), Nochais (2014), Nejati et al.
(2008), Saha (2009), Sokolovskyy (2012), Hamidi et al. (2013), Yayla-
Kullu and Tansitpong (2013), Khuong and Uyen (2014)
2.2 A Hierarchical Framework of Key Factors
Based on the results of the papers related to airline service in section 2.1, we build a
hierarchy framework of the factors.
According to AHP procedure, the goal must specific to decision problem which
properly evaluated by decision maker, then criteria of a decision problem will used to
evaluate the alternatives below with respect to the goal above. And each of alternatives will
be judged based on these criteria, to see the reaching goal of the problem.
The goal of this paper is to select the best low cost airline. Therefore, the goal is put in
to the apex of hierarchy. After that, the hierarchy goes down with dimensions in the second
19
level, as well as following by factors in the third level, which are presented in Figure 2.1.
Besides, the definitions of dimensions and factors are presented in Table 2.2.
Figure 2.1 A Hierarchical Framework of Key Factors Affecting
Thai Passengers to Select LCA
20
Table 2.2 The Definitions of Dimensions and Factors
Dimension Factor Definition of factors
A1. Airline Corporate
A1.1 Brand image The objective of the brand image is to gain
a competitive advantage which enable
passengers to select the brand.
A1.2 Safety record Safety records refer to all of condition
related, weather conditions, flight crashes,
terrorism, and even pilots own mistakes been
reported throughout the years.
A1.3 Service supply
chain
Service supply chain include how
passengers are assisted before and after the
actual flight such as check-in, proper transfer,
arrival service, baggage and cargo delivery.
A1.4 Price Price is the sum of value that consumers
are willing to pay or give in exchange for the
benefits.
A1.5 Alliance Alliance is two or more airlines agreeing
to cooperate on a unique organization entity.
Alliances may facilitate travelers making inter-
airline connections while travelers also benefit
from lower prices due to alliance.
A1.6 Promotion and
advertising
Promotion and advertising consist of sale
promotion, advertisement through various
media, public relation, call center for
providing advice, website for providing
information, Frequent Flyer Program (FFP),
and privilege.
A2.1 Reliability Reliability is the ability to perform the
promised service dependably and accurately
by staffs, including flight attendance, ground
staff and captain.
21
Dimension Factor Definition of factors
A2. Service Quality
A2.2 Tangible The components of tangible, in term of
personnel, include well dress, good
personality, and neat appearance.
A2.3 Empathy Service personnel have the ability to solve
passenger problem, understand customer
need, and toward facilitate the process of
meeting passenger demand.
A2.4 Responsiveness Responsiveness refers to enthusiasm as
well as willing to help passenger and listen to
passenger opinion with friendly.
A2.5 Assurance Assurance refers to staff training in the use
of tools and knowledge of service processes,
and the perception that the staffs is competent
and not going to harm anyone.
A3. Flight
Management
A3.1 Punctuality Punctuality is on time without delay flights.
A3.2 Flight availability Provide proper flight schedule and seats
available, and the availability of alternative
flights in case of delay or cancellation.
A3.3 Flight
compensation
Flight compensation will assist passengers
in the event of denied boarding, flight
cancellations, or long delays of flights, and
consists of such as financially compensation.
A3.4 Flight
announcement
Flight announcement informs passengers
about an event that has happened or is going
to happen such as quick announcement of
flight schedules, notify customers of the exact
time of flight when delay or cancellation
occur, and sufficient flight information during
22
Dimension Factor Definition of factors
flight.
A4. Airline Aircraft
A4.1 Cleanliness Cleanliness is the state of being clean and
free from dirt, and the process of achieving
and maintaining the state including clean
restrooms in the cabin.
A4.2 Comfort Comfort is a sense of physical or
psychological ease, for example provide air
condition, well arranged comfort seat, and
easy-to-use shelf space for baggage during the
whole journey.
A4.3 Entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that
holds the attention and interest of an
audience, or gives pleasure and delight via
providing up-to-date newspapers, magazines,
and video films during the flight. It may not
be free.
A4.4 Facilities Facilities relate to the equipment which is
fashionable, up to date, and easy to use, for
example, new model of aircraft, Wi-Fi on the
airplane as well as air-conditioner and light.
2.3 Papers Related to the Analytic Hierarchy Process
(AHP)
Min (1994) suggested that Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) can effectively deal
with both qualitative and quantitative factors in multiple criteria decision environment, which
can help a regional airport official to create the airport location strategies. The researcher also
suggested that there were three main advantages of AHP to assess various airport location
strategies, for example, the ability of handling multiple conflict goal inherent in airport
23
location, enable the policy maker to evaluate “What-if” scenarios associated with changes in
the government policy, and capability to not only accommodate subjectivity and
inconsistency intrinsic to human judgments, but also convert a normative procedure to a
decision support system.
Triantaphyllou and Mann (1995) considered AHP as a favorable and effective method
for solving complex Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problems in engineering.
Nevertheless, the researcher suggested when applying AHP in engineering problems should
be careful because there was sufficient explanatory proof that the recommendations of AHP
should not be taken literally.
Chen (2006) applied AHP method to make an evaluation structure of convention site
selection in tourism industry. It was shown that AHP was benefit to support a decision in
convention site selection.
Yoo and Choi (2006) utilized the AHP method to analyze and identify three important
factors influencing the passenger screening capability so as to improve the security checks at
the airport. The analysis showed that the most important factors should be improved is the
human resources factor, and this outcome also agreed with other papers in international
aviation.
Berrittella et al. (2009) used AHP to compare the components of operating costs of
low cost airline (LCA) with these of full service airline (FSA) for strategic allocation of those
costs. The result indicated that rental, costs of office equipment and other supplies show the
highest importance in the ranks of both FCA and LCA, followed by outsourcing maintenance
costs which was considered as the second criteria by LCA while hanger cost by FSA. Then,
they concluded that AHP can be a suitable method used to obtain the rank of the components
of operating costs for both airline business models.
Chakraborty et al. (2011) used a novel heuristic procedure to solve vendor selection
problem of the Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem in the multi objective
environment, which the initial solution of the problem was achieved by using AHP approach
in the primary step then the quality of the solution was analyzed by using proposed heuristic
approach. The researcher concluded that result from using a novel heuristic method was
shown to be better than using only AHP method in the aspect of solution quality.
24
Huang et al. (2013) used AHP method to choose a suitable biological indicator from
several indicator candidates on a river restoration. The result showed that Periphyton was
selected as the most suitable biological indicator. Since using AHP method, they concluded
that indicator selection was quite truthful because the analysis process was performed
mathematically rather than qualitatively.
Badea et al. (2014) utilized AHP to obtain the 16 most important risk factors of
supply chain crisis that obstruct collaborative supply chain both vertical and horizontal
collaboration. They also created the AHP framework to evaluate the risk factors and
alternatives (including information sharing collaboration, decision synchronization
collaboration, incentive alignment collaboration, resource and skill sharing collaboration, and
knowledge management collaboration) for providing managers with the right concept of
collaboration in the future business enterprises.
Reddy et al. (2014) described how an AHP approach may be used to help National
Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to develop the public health guideline in the
promotion of good health and in the prevention and treatment of disease. The result showed
that fluoridation of water is the best topic while ‘Sickle Cell screening’ is the worst criteria.
However, the researchers commented that AHP does not provide the ‘right answer’ or assist
responsible decision makers to use suitable determination because AHP only provides an
initial construct of how the topics perform on key criteria. However, AHP may be used to
help decision maker to accept or reject topics easier and more consistently. Therefore, NICE
should be careful as any priorities produced by AHP must be refined.
Durbach et al. (2014) combined AHP with Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability
Analysis (SMAA) to allow the pairwise comparisons to be uncertain by evaluating simulated
problem about the consistency of judgements from ability of the SMAA-AHP model. The
results indicated that judgements probably remained consistent except uncertainty was
serious, but the uncertainty was sufficient to make the choice of best alternative unclear.
Mighty (2015) applied AHP to define the weights of several biophysical and
infrastructure factors so as to create the site suitability model on GIS (Geographical
Information Systems)-based MCDA (Multi Criteria Decision Analysis) incorporate with
viewpoint of local coffee stakeholder for growing coffee in Jamaica, and the results could be
served for agriculture enterprise to enhance competitive advantage in the future.
25
Goossens and Basten (2015) applied AHP to investigate the wider application of
Maintenance Policy Selection (MPS) for naval ship. They concluded AHP was suitable for
naval MPS in many ways. However, AHP for naval MPS can be considered less as an actual
decision method, and it was considered more as thought-structuring and insight-providing
discussion method which providing a structured and detailed approach for MPS. Moreover,
AHP also simplified discussions in many steps of the sessions, created a better
comprehending of the policy selection process.
Erdil and Erbryik (2015) applied AHP to serve milk factory to determine the best
SWOT strategy in the small business area. They concluded that AHP gives an impartial and
effective decision model for choosing the most suitable strategy. Moreover, AHP can help in
dealing with complicated decision making processes, as well as it can provide acceptable and
reasonable results for administrators and decision makers.
Reddy et al. (2015) found how AHP might create utilities of health state through the
investigation in national EuroQol five dimensional (European Quality of life five dimensions)
questionnaire survey instead the time trade-off approach (TTO). They suggested that AHP
was a good method in predicting the ranking of health state. It was able to transform ordinal
preferences into meaningful utilities which offered an easier approach to estimate the results
when comparing to original TTO method that commonly was used to elicit preferences.
Kalayci and Ozer (2016) applied AHP to select the most Suitable Site Specific
Vibration Attenuation (SSVA) equation from 11 SSVA equations for blasting processes in a
quarry located near settlements in Istanbul, Turkey, and SSVA which is a necessary approach
to amplify the charge magnitude on the excavation activity in a new practice. AHP was
conducted for using error percentages, the number of data, the effect of the years which the
equations were formed, and the parameters of equation, for example year, distance, charge,
and R square were used as criteria for AHP. The result showed that equation number 17
could be considered as the best estimating equation.
26
Chapter 3 Methodology of Analytic Hierarchy
Process
One of the most important obstacles on human nature for answering their questions or
dealing with their troubles, almost of them is related to the process of making decision. For a
long time, people have been encountering with many decision problems, which are difficult
and complicated for them to make and select the most preferable one. To compass these
cumbersome problems, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is considered as an effective
alternative methodology that can be assisted the evaluation of multi criteria decision making
process. So far as anyone knows, AHP approach has been widely used and popular since
there are a lot of evidences prove that this efficient method has been successfully applied in
the solution of many actually problems for over the past of decade and until now.
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a process providing a flexible model that allows
individual or groups to shape ideas and define problems by making their own assumptions
and deriving the desired solution from them. It also enables people to test the sensitivity of
the solution, or outcome. Designed to accommodate the human nature rather than force them
into a mode of thinking that may violate the better judgment. AHP incorporates judgments
and personal values in a logic way. It depends on imagination, experience and knowledge to
structure the hierarchy of problem and on logic, intuition and experience to provide
judgments. Once accepted and followed, AHP shows how to connect elements of one part of
the problem with those of another to obtain the combined outcome. It is a process for
identifying, understanding, and assessing the interactions of system as a whole.
Therefore, AHP is regarded as a powerful process for tackling complex problems that
helps decision makers to make decisions involving their experience, knowledge and intuition
(Saaty, 1980).
3.1 The Principle of AHP
When applying AHP, we must be careful about the principals of AHP (Satty, 1980):
1. There are three basic concepts of AHP, including:
27
a. Hierarchic representation and decomposition, which we call hierarchic structuring-
that is, breaking down the problem into separate elements.
b. Priority discrimination and synthesis, which we call priority setting- that is, ranking
the elements by relative importance.
c. Logic consistency- that is, ensuring that elements are grouped logically and ranked
consistently according to a logic criterion.
2. We cannot measure without a scale, but traditional scales such as time and money limit the
nature of ideas we can deal with. Thus we need a new scale for measuring intangible
qualities.
3. The analytical hierarchy process is a flexible model that allows us to make decisions by
combining judgment and personal values in a logical way.
3.2 The Process of AHP
AHP was developed by Saaty (1977, 1980, 1990) as a decision supportive tool taking
into account both tangible and intangible aspects. AHP is a mathematical method for
formulating and analyzing complex decisions through making structure of the complex
decision problems in the form of a simple hierarchy. Besides, AHP method can be applied to
estimate a large number of qualitative and quantitative factors in a methodically pattern under
conflicting multiple criteria.
A hierarchical decision structure was constructed to apply AHP method, begin with
breaking the decision problem down to its decision components and levels. Then, the critical
of the decision components are investigated through pair wise comparison in the hierarchy.
The apex of levels is the main problem or ultimate goal, following by the intermediate levels
(dimensions) which relate to the major components while the lowest levels (factors) relate to
sub-components. If each component of each level hinges on all the components criteria of
upper level, the hierarchy is complete. The components of each level are compared pair wise
with respect to a definite component in the level instantly above.
Yoo and Choi (2006) use AHP for identifying relative importance of factors to
improve passenger security checks at airport. As well as Berrittella et al. (2009) made a
28
ranking operating cost of low cost and full service airlines by AHP. They proposed the below
five major steps in AHP process.
Step 1: Define the decision problem and goal
In this stage, the general objective of the decision must be clearly defined which can
be broken down into three components:
1. Define a goal: The goal of the problem is main objective that drives the decision problem.
The goal should be a single and specific to the problem, that can be examined properly by
the decision makers.
2. Define Criteria: The criteria (dimensions) of a decision problem which used to evaluate
the alternatives regarding to the goal. We can go further to create sub-criteria (factors),
when more differentiation is required.
3. Define an alternative: The alternatives are the different options that are weighed in the
decision. Each alternative will be judged based on these criteria, to see how well they
meet the goal of the problem.
With these three components, we can construct a hierarchy for the problem, where
each level represents a different cut at the problem.
Step 2: Structure the hierarchy
This is the most imaginative and necessary section of decision-making. As structuring
the decision problem into a hierarchy is basically to the process of AHP.
In this stage, the hierarchical model is constructed in the form of a network that
modified tree structure is like a hierarchy which hierarchy shows a relationship between
elements of one level with other level immediately below, and every element of manner is
corresponded to every other, at least in an indirect manner.
29
The hierarchical model is structured from the top through the intermediate toward the
lowest level which usually holds a group of alternatives. Generally, the model composes of
four levels from the top to down, including the goal, criteria, sub criteria and alternatives,
shown in Figure 3.1.
(Level 1: Goal)
Figure 3.1 Decision Hierarchy (Saaty, 1980)
Saaty noted that a favorably way to structure the hierarchy is to work down from the
goal as long as one can. After that work up from the alternatives until the levels of the two
processes are connected in such a way as to make comparisons possible.
Step 3: Construct the pair wise comparison matrix
Pair wise comparison matrices are constructed so as to examine the important or
preferences of decision elements which presented into the elements in the hierarchy.
The matrix are constructed for each of the lower levels with one matrix for each
element in the level immediately above by using a pair wise comparison measurement scale
to weights the important or preference on a nine point scale number that allows the
conversion of qualitative judgments into cardinal values. Table 3.1 show the measurement
scale for pair wise comparison.
Goal
Criteria 1 Criteria 2
Sub Criteria
Sub Criteria
Sub Criteria
Sub Criteria
Alternative B Alternative A Alternative C
(Level 2: Criteria)
(Level 3: Sub Criteria)
(Level 4: Alternative)
30
Table 3.1 A Pair Wise Comparison Measurement Scale
Intensity
of
important
Definition Explanation
1 Equal importance Two activities contribute equally to the objective
3 Weak importance of
one over another
Experience and judgment slightly favor one activity
over another
5 Essential or strong
importance
Experience and judgment strongly favor one activity
over another
7
Very strong or
demonstrated
importance
An activity is favored very strongly over another; its
dominance demonstrated in practice
9 Absolutely importance The evidence favoring one activity over another is of
the highest possible order of affirmation
2,4,6,8
Intermediate values
between adjacent scale
values
A reasonable assumption
1:1-1:9
When two elements
are very close but
often one would be
guessing
Better, the elements are compared with other
contrasting elements using 1–9 and good answers are
obtained
First, in the pair wise comparison table with n elements of AHP, there are values
which equal to 1 along the diagonal or are the reciprocals values above and below the
diagonal, and the number of pair wise comparison equals to 𝑛 (𝑛−1)
2 . For instance, if there is
4 elements, the number of pair wise comparison is 4×3
2= 6. The pair wise comparison table
on 4 elements is shown in Table 3.2
31
Table 3.2 The Pair Wise Comparison Table on 4 Elements
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
E1 E2
E1 E3
E1 E4
E2 E3
E2 E4
E3 E4
The element on the left is more important The element on the right is more important
than the right than the left
The elements are equivalent for left and right
Table 3.3 The Result of Pair Wise Comparison Matrix
From Table 3.3
1. In term of above level, E1 is weak important than E2 and the strength is 3.
2. In term of above level, E2 is strong important than E3 and the strength is 5.
Element E1 E2 E3 E4
E1 1 3 7 9
E2 1/3 1 5 7
E3 1/7 1/5 1 3
E4 1/9 1/7 1/3 1
32
The above step will be created repeatedly until the judgment is constructed for each
criteria. Moreover, each element is equally important when compare to itself, thus the entries
in the main diagonal need to be 1.
Then, the comparison matrix are created for the size of n× n. Assume there are n
elements with weights w1, w2…, wn. Then, we have the following matrix.
w1/w1 w1/w2 … w1/wn
w2/w1 w2/w2 … w2/wn (1)
⋮ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮
wn/w1 wn/w2 … wn/wn
The above matrix above is an example of a consistent matrix.
Step 4 Compute the eigenvalue
We denote aij the number indicating the strength of ith element (criteria) when
comparing with jth element. The matrix of these numbers aij is denoted A, or
A= [aij]
As aij = 1/ aij that is, the matrix A is a reciprocal matrix (a reciprocal matrix is one in
which for each entry aij, aij = 1/aji). If our judgment is perfect in all comparisons, then aij =
aij× ajk for all i, j, k and we call the matrix A consistent matrix, and matrix A contains no
errors (the weights are already known).
An obvious of a consistent matrix is one in which the comparisons are based on
extract measurements; that is, the weights w1,…,wn are already known. Then
A = [aij] =
33
aij =𝑤𝑖
𝑤𝑗 i ,j=1,…n (2)
Thus
aijajk = 𝑤𝑖
𝑤𝑗 𝑤𝑗
𝑤𝑘 =
𝑤𝑖
𝑤𝑘 = aik
∑ 𝑎𝑖𝑗𝑤𝑗𝑛𝑗=1 = nwi i, j=1,…n (3)
Then
Aw = nw (4)
In matrix theory, an eigenvector of a square matrix A is a vector w while an
eigenvalue is n (associated with an eigenvector w). Both eigenvectors and eigenvalues are
very important in AHP. The matrix equation is as follows.
𝑤1
𝑤1
𝑤1
𝑤2 …
𝑤1
𝑤𝑛 w1 w1
𝑤2
𝑤1
𝑤2
𝑤2 …
𝑤2
𝑤𝑛 w2 = n w2 (5)
⋮ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮
𝑤𝑛
𝑤1
𝑤𝑛
𝑤2 …
𝑤𝑛
𝑤𝑛 wn wn
By making pair wise comparisons between alternatives, we can easily construct a
ratio matrix into (6).
34
1 a12 … a1n
1/a12 1 … a2n
⋮ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮ (6)
1/a1n 1/a2n … 1
From (4), Aw = nw, if the vector of weights is unknown, it can be evaluated from the
pair wise comparison of matrix A, generated from the principal eigenvalue which refers to
λmax (for a standard scale ratio matrix λmax = n, that is the largest eigenvalue of that matrix).
We could modify (4) into (7),
Aw = λmaxw (7)
Therefore, we will have reciprocal values under the diagonal (only inverting the ratio)
which all ones on the diagonal when compare the alternative itself. This matrix is called
reciprocal matrix. They are reciprocal stems from the fact that the ratio does not change
depending on which element you compare to another. The construct will be shown in (8).
A =
35
1 a12 … a1n w1 w1
1/a12 1 … a2n w2 = λmax w2 (8)
⋮ ⋮ ⋯ ⋱ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮
1/a1n 1/a2n … 1 wn wn
According to Saaty (1980), it was proved that the largest eigenvalue (λmax of a
reciprocal matrix A) is always greater than or equal to n.
If the pair wise comparisons consistency, λmax = n.
If the pair wise comparisons inconsistency, λmax > n
We need to check the consistency of pair wise comparison matrix.
Step 5 Analyze the consistency and consequence weight
To maintain rational consistency when deriving priorities from pair wise comparisons,
therefore, we have to measure the consistency of the judgment matrix which can be
determined from the consistency ratio (C.R.), the consistency ratio C.R. ≤ 10% is acceptable.
If the value is higher, the judgments may not be accepted and should be elicited again, the
consistency ratio (C.R.) is defined as (9)
C.R. = C.I.
R.I. (9)
36
C.I. is a consistency index and R.I. is a Random Index
C.I. measures the inconsistencies of pair wise comparisons calculated from (10):
C.I. = 𝜆𝑚𝑎𝑥−𝑛
(𝑛−1) (10)
n is the matrix size, and
R.I. refers to average random C.I. in a large number of randomly generated matrices
from the Table 3.4 below (Saaty and Kearns, 1991).
Table 3.4 Average Random Consistency Index (R.I. Value)
Size of
matrix
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
RI 0.00 0.00 0.58 0.90 1.12 1.24 1.32 1.41 1.45 1.49
After the comparison matrix passing the consistency check, we will have to do
another process to test the overall consistency of the hierarchy so as to find the global
consistency ratio of AHP before acquiring the priority, by defining a Consistency Ratio of the
Hierarchy (C.R.H.).
C.R.H. was computed by the Consistency Ratio of Hierarchy (C.I.H.) and Random
Index of Hierarchy (R.I.H.) from (11), (12), and (13)
C.I.H. = ∑ ∑ 𝑊𝑖𝑗𝑈𝑖,𝑗+1𝑛𝑗
𝑖=1ℎ𝑗=1 (11)
R.I.H. =∑ ∑ 𝑊𝑖𝑗𝑅𝑖,𝑗+1𝑛𝑗
𝑖=1ℎ𝑗=1 (12)
nj is to the number of elements contained in j level,
Wij is the comprehensive weight value of i element in j level,
37
U i, j+1 is the C.I. of j+1 level toward the i element in j level
R i, j+1 is the R.I. of j+1 level toward the i element in j level.
Or in the form of easily equation below,
C.I.H. = 2nd level C.I. + vector of 2nd level Vector of 3rd level
priority weights consistency indices
R.I.H. = 2nd level R.I. + vector of 2nd level Vector of 3rd level
priority weights random indices
Then
C.R.H. = C.I.H.
R.I.H. (13)
When C.R.H. ≤0.1, it means the overall hierarchy of the developed comparison
evaluation is consistency.
And when the local priorities of elements (local weights) in different levels are
available, to obtain the final priorities (global weights) of the alternatives βi, the priorities
should be as (14)
T(βi) = ∑ 𝑤𝑘𝑇𝑘𝑘 (ai) (14)
×
×
38
wk is the local priority of element k and Tk(ai) is the priority of alternative βi with
respect to element k of the upper level. An alternative with the largest value of T(βi) is chosen
as the best alternative.
3.3 The Advantages of AHP
There are several advantages when applying AHP:
1. Unity: AHP provides a single, easily understood, flexible model for a wide range of
unstructured problems.
2. Complexity: AHP integrates deductive and systematic approaches in solving complex
problem.
3. Interdependence: AHP can deal with the interdependence of elements in a system and
does not insist on linear thinking.
4. Hierarchical Structuring: AHP reflects the natural tendency of the mind to sort elements
of a system into different levels and to group similar elements in each level.
5. Measurement: AHP provides a scale for measuring intangibles and a method for
establishing priorities.
6. Consistency: AHP tracks the logical consistency of judgments used in determining
priorities.
7. Synthesis: AHP leads to an overall estimate of the desirability of each alternative.
8. Tradeoffs: AHP takes into consideration the relative priorities of factors in a system and
enables people to select the best alternative based on their goals.
9. Judgment and Consensus: AHP does not insist on consensus but synthesizes a
representative outcome from diverse judgments.
10. Process Repetition: AHP enables people to refine their definition of a problem and to
improve their judgment and understanding through repetition.
3.4 The Applications of AHP
AHP can be applied to solve the problems in various kinds of daily activities and
almost every aspect of life, such as personal decision, business perspective, social and
economic areas. The examples of problem topics are described details in Table 3.5 below.
39
Table 3.5 The Applications of AHP
Problem Topics Problem Sections
Home or personal decisions Buying a car, choosing household appliances, getting
Ph.D. choosing the ideal investment, choosing a spouse,
deciding on how many children to have, selecting a
school, choosing a city in which to reside, purchasing a
house, etc.
Social or psychological issues Judging parental influence on overall psychological
well-being, predicting the number of children of an
average family, etc.
Corporate context Purchasing of urethane equipment, purchasing of word
processing equipment, buying or leasing equipment,
selecting a management position, etc.
Nonprofit agencies Assessing the benefit of crossing a river, developing a
programs for research and development of a research
institute, deciding on the capacity of a harbor, etc.
Public policy issues Selection of beverage container, evaluation of energy
storage systems, higher education, resource allocation
for juvenile correction, staggering industry hours for
energy conservation, likelihood of technical innovation
as related to forms of corporate control, analysis of the
school busing conflict, conflicts of interest in health
administration, planning for the steel industry, selection
of regional projects, site selection of combustion
turbines, resource allocation among research and
development projects in a bank, product-market
decisions, financial decision making, division
performance evaluation, normative backward planning
process, etc.
International context Economic strategy for an underdeveloped country,
mineral extraction, etc.
40
Problem Topics Problem Sections
Estimate or prediction Selection of music groups, prediction of elections, etc.
41
Chapter 4 Results of Survey and Discussion
Questionnaire survey is the main method to obtain and collect necessary data for
analysis in our study. In this study, the questionnaires are distributed to both of the arrival and
departure passengers, at Don Mueang International Airport, Thailand, for two weeks since
February 1, 2016. The questionnaire consists of two main parts: one is the basic information
part, in this part, the personal information will be used for obtaining the overall image of Thai
passengers; and another part, questions for pairwise comparison, the results of comparison
will be analyzed by AHP. The questionnaires are designed in English and Thai version.
4.1 Personal Information of Thai Passengers
Personal information part describes the facts of Thai passengers who are the target
group of this study. The demographic characteristics of Thai passengers may have an impact
on customer’s preference of brand determination toward low cost airline (Alam, 2012).
There are two sections in the personal information part: one is about the background
of Thai passengers, in which we ask subjects about gender, age, highest education level,
monthly income, and occupation; another is about airline experience, in which we ask
subjects about the experiences of traveling on airlines, by Full Service Airline (FSA) or Low
Cost Airline (LCA).
The Demographic Characteristics
We hand out 40 questionnaires to Thai passengers in different flights at the arrival
passenger gateway and departure passenger gateways in Don Mueang International Airport,
Thailand. However, there are only 35 questionnaires that pass the consistent test and could be
further analyzed, and the effective respond rate is 87.5%. Next, we will explore in more detail
about Thai passengers’ demographic background basing on the 35 effective questionnaires.
The summary of Thai passengers’ demographic background is shown on Table 4.1
42
Table 4.1 Summary of Thai Passengers’ Demographic Characteristics
Demographic characteristic Number of subjects Proportion
Gender
Female
Male
Total
25
10
35
71.4%
28.6%
100%
Age
Less than 15
15-24
25-34
35-49
50-64
65 up
Total
Average Age 29.28
0
7
23
5
0
0
35
0
20%
65.7%
14.3%
0
0
100%
Education level
Lower than Bachelor degree
Bachelor’s degree
Master’s degree
Doctor’s degree
Total
5
17
13
0
35
14.3%
48.6%
37.1%
0
100%
Monthly income
Less than 14,000 THB
14,000-30,000 THB
30,001-60,000 THB
60,001-90,000 THB
90,001 THB up
Total
*Average Monthly income
25,676 THB
7
17
10
0
1
35
20
48.6
28.6
0
2.9
100
Occupation
Student
Government sector
Private sector
Others: Housewife, retired
Total
10
4
17
4
35
28.6
11.4
48.6
11.4
100
*Ignore the person who has the highest monthly income, 90,001 THB up.
Gender
From the data, it shows that the total number of effective respondents is 35, and 25
females and 10 males. Therefore, in our survey, 71.4% of respondents are females and 28.6%
are male. The proportion of gender is imbalance. Other studies on passenger satisfaction have
shown similar imbalances, for example, one study showed a 56% female participation rate
(Charoensettasilp & Wu, 2013). Buapibhan (2015) explains that there may exist a difference
between male and female passengers that make women more likely to respond.
43
Age
The range of age is divided into six groups including less than 15 years old, 15-24
years old, 25-34 years old, 35-49 years old, 50-64 years old, and equal or more than 65 years
old. From the data, it indicates that there is no respondent who is less than 15 years old and
above 50 years old. Moreover, there are 7 respondents who are 15-24 years old, 23
respondents who are 25-34 years old, which are the greatest group as well, and 5 respondents
who are 35-49 years old. Therefore, the proportions of three groups of age are 20%, 65.7%,
and 14.3 %, respectively. The average age of the respondents is 29 years old. It seems that
young Thai people tend to travel by low cost airline than the elder. Because in the views of
Thai senior tourists, they love to stay in the comfort zone, like home comfort zone, therefore,
Thai older people might not prefer to do any kinds of activity that may harm their security or
safety (Anantamongkolkul et al., 2014). Pipatchaisiri (2012) describes that although
travelling with air transportation has the least opportunity to happen mishap, the loss in
airline accident is concerned as the most damage than any other transportation losses.
Highest Education Level
The highest education level is divided into four groups including lower than
Bachelor’s degree, Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, and Doctor’s degree. From the data,
it shows that, there are 5 respondents who are lower than Bachelor’s degree, 17 respondents
who are Bachelor’s degree, which are the greatest group as well, and 13 respondents who are
Master’s degree while there is no one who is Doctor’s degree answered the questionnaire.
The proportions of three groups of highest education level are 14.3%, 48.6% and 37.1%,
respectively. Buapibhan (2015) also supports that the highest educational level of passengers
of low cost airline are in the bachelor or master degree. Moreover, according to the data from
BOT (Bank of Thailand, 2015) shows that the average salary of Thai people who are lower
than bachelor’s degree is 9,718.21 THB, which salary might be not enough to travel by
airline.
Monthly Income
The range of monthly income is divided into five groups including less than 14,000
THB, 14,000-30,000 THB, 30,001-60,000 THB, 60,001-90,000 THB, and equal or more than
90,001 THB. From the data, it shows that there are 7 respondents who earn less than 14,000
THB, 17 respondents who earn 14,000-30,000 THB, which are the greatest group as well, 10
44
respondents who earn 30,001-60,000 THB, and 1 respondent who earn equal or more than
90,001 THB. But, there is no one who earns 60,001-90,000 THB. The proportions of four
groups of monthly income are 20%, 48.6%, 28.6% and 2.9%, respectively. Moreover, the
average monthly income of the respondents is 25,676 THB, when the respondent who earns
equal or more than 90,001 THB is ignored. However, when we deeply examine the data of
this person, it is the passenger who works in private sector, having a bachelor degree and
taking airline for 6-14 times per year on the business and tourism purpose. Besides, the data
from National Statistic office in Thailand (2015) indicates that the average monthly income
per household is 25, 403 THB. Therefore, most of the passengers in our study belong to the
middle class in Thailand. They need to save money by taking LCA when they want to travel
by air.
Occupation
The types of occupations are divided into four groups including student, government
sector, private sector, and others (e.g. housewife and retired). From the data, it shows that
there are 10 respondents who are students, 4 respondents who are in government sector, 17
respondents who are in private sector, which are the greatest group as well, and 4 respondents
who are in others. The proportions of four groups of occupations are 28.6%, 11.4%, 48.6%,
11.4%, respectively. The reason that student group prefers to choose air transportation is that
most of Thai students are supported by family and no need to take responsibility of earning
family income which results in they may have more opportunities to travel (Kumsak, 2013).
Moreover, the private sector is concerned as the occupation that people could earn higher
incomes; therefore, this group has more opportunities to take the airline than any others
(Bunchoowong, 2015).
Airline Experience of Thai Passengers
We ask Thai passengers about their airline experience by three questions including the
frequency of catching air transportation, the main purpose of taking flight, and whether to fly
a LCA.
From the data about the frequency of catching air transportation, 25 respondents take
on air transportation for 1-5 times per year, which the proportion is counted as 71.4%, 8
respondents for 6-14 times per year is in the second group, which is counted as 22.9%, and 1
45
respondent for less than 1 time per year and 1 respondent for 15-29 times per year, which is
counted as 2.9%, the results are displayed in the Figure 4.1 below.
Figure 4.1 The Frequency of Catching Air Transportation
From a profoundly inspection on Figure 4.1, it shows that the frequency for Thai
passengers to take an airline is 5.07 times per year. Moreover, the passengers who fly for 1-5
times per year are the largest group. From the data of personal information, they are in the
private sector group, earning monthly income with 14,000-30,000 THB, owning bachelor
degree, and use the airline transportation for tourism purpose. Only one person in the
government sector group takes an airline for 15-29 times per year. While Thai passengers
taking an airline for less than 1 time per year are in the housewife or retired group whose
monthly income is less than 14,000 THB and their highest education level is lower than
bachelor degree. However, the passengers who take an airline 6-14 times is in different
groups of occupation. The respondents who take an airline in the range of 1-5 times per year
they fly for tourism purpose. Tainta (2012) explains that most of the Thai passengers who
take an airline for five times per year are for tourism. Muenhong (2006) also describes that
passengers who take low cost airline 1-5 times a year are for travelling, while passengers in
the government sector take more flights because they take flight for training, seminar, or
business (DOEB, 2014). The housewife or retired group with lowest income may need to
2.9%
71.4%
22.9%
2.9%
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Frequency of catching air
transportation
<1 time 1-5 times 6-14 times 15-29 times
Persons
46
save the money; therefore, this group might not earn enough income for taking more air
transportation.
As for the main purpose of taking flight, 29 Thai passengers travelling for tourism, the
proportion is counted as 82.9% (including business + tourism 8.6%, and tourism + study
2.85% as well); the business purpose is the second group, which there is 5 respondents and
the proportion is calculated as 14.3% (including business + tourism 8.6% as well); the third
group is for study, there is 2 respondents, or the proportion is 5.7% (including tourism +
study 2.85%), further, visit family belong to the third group; and the last group is for seminar,
gain 1 respondents, the proportion is 2.85%. The results are displayed in Figure 4.2.
Homanan (2011) and Tainta (2012) support that the main purpose of Thai passengers taking
flight are for tourism, business, and family, respectively.
Figure 4.2 The Main Purpose of Taking Flight
Nowadays, most of the Thai passengers prefer to choose air transportation instead of
taking train or bus for domestic travelling because air transportation is more comfortable and
fast, and the price is not too expensive like the past (Homanan, 2011). Moreover, basing on
the data from MMO (Mobile Marketing Association, 2015) indicates that Thai people love
travelling life style more than people in APEC. Besides, the data from NSO (National
Statistics Office of Thailand, 2015) indicates that the most popular activity of Thai people is
tourism.
5.7% 8.6%
71.4%
2.85% 2.85% 5.7%2.85%
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Business Bu+Tour Tourism Tour+stu Study Visit family Seminar
The main purpose of taking flight
47
Figure 4.3 The Number of Passengers Who Travel on LCA
From Figure 4.3, it is not surprising that all Thai passengers have experience on
taking low cost airline. The main reason may be that Thai passengers are price sensitive. In
our survey, most of Thai respondents, their monthly income is in the range of 14,000-30,000
THB, and in the private sector. These types of passengers are in the major market segment of
LCA. That is, the lower income group inclines to fly with LCA, as it provides the group a
chance to fly more frequent (Suriya, 2006, and Suriya, 2009). Moreover, the important point
is that most of switching passengers to LCA are sensitive to price (Tretheway and Oum,
1992).
4.2 Results of Questionnaire
One of the most important steps of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is to calculate
the global weights of dimensions and factors. In theory, the larger global weight, the more
important dimension and factor is.
35
0Yes No
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
The number of passengers who traveled on LCA
48
Table 4.2 The Weights and Ranks of Dimensions and Factors
Dimension Global
weight
(%)
Rank Factor Local
weight
(%)
Rank Global
weight (%)
Rank
Airline
Corporate
34.734
1
Brand Image 13.968 3 4.852 9
Safety Record 27.687 2 9.617 3
Service Supply Chain 10.807 5 3.754 13
Price 29.117 1 10.114 1
Alliance 5.870 6 2.039 18
Promotion and Advertising 12.551 4 4.360 10
Service Quality
26.500
2
Reliability 28.990 1 7.683 4
Tangible 13.750 4 3.644 14
Empathy 16.288 3 4.316 11
Responsiveness 27.231 2 7.216 5
Assurance 13.741 5 3.641 15
Flight
Management
22.770
3
Punctuality 43.472 1 9.899 2
Flight Availability 26.599 2 6.057 6
Flight Compensation 13.315 4 3.032 17
Flight Announcement 16.614 3 3.783 12
Airline aircraft 15.994
4
Cleanliness 33.286 2 5.324 8
Comfort 34.999 1 5.598 7
Entertainment 10.372 4 1.659 19
Facilities 21.343 3 3.414 16
The Analysis of Importance of Dimensions
From Table 4.2, it shows that, the global weight of Airline Corporate is 0.347357, or
34.734%, the global weight of Service Quality is 0.265004, or 26.500%, while the global
weight of Flight Management is 0.227702, or 22.770%, and the global weight of Airline
Aircraft is 0.159937, or 15.994%. Therefore, the rank of dimensions affecting Thai
passengers to select low cost airline, is Airline Corporate, Service Quality, Flight
Management, and Airline Aircraft.
Airline Corporate
It is the most important dimension affecting Thai passengers on LCA selection. The six
factors under this dimension are price, safety record, brand image, promotion and advertising,
service supply chain, and alliance, respectively.
Airline corporate is able to represent and to reflect the overall image of the performance
of airline. It lets passengers have a better impression about the value of product, in term of
49
monetary worthiness, especially, focusing on the low fare, and non-monetary worthiness,
such as the safety condition, service supply chain, and branding, and it helps passengers to
make a purchasing decision easier. Moreover, airline corporate also enables to lead
passengers to obtain the perceived image of airline that influencing the satisfaction and need
of passengers, which makes them be trustful and loyal to the corporate brand, and let airline
gain competitive advantage.
Airline corporate is considered as significant criteria for Thai low cost airline passengers
because it reminds Thai passengers to be aware of the reputation of airline, For example, Air
Asia targets itself to the price-sensitive passengers while Nok Air focuses on middle class
passengers. Qin (2012) finds that airline corporate offers satisfactory value for what it prices.
However, Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013) find that perceiving the call center providing
advises, promotion and advertising, and safety from aviation background, all these affect the
attitude and needs of Thai passengers when selecting domestic low cost airline. Nochais
(2014) supports that advertising and public relation, cheaper ticket flight and fare, and
reputation of airline corporate influence Thai passengers on the decision of selecting towards
domestic low cost airlines. Furthermore, Buaphiban (2015) also finds that price and airline
reputation influence Thai passengers to select low cost airline.
Service Quality
It is the second important dimension. The five factors under this dimension are
reliability, responsiveness, empathy, tangible, and assurance, respectively.
Service quality apparently has relationship with costs, profitability, customer
satisfaction, customer retention, behavioral intention, and positive word- of- mouth. It is a
measure of how well the delivered service matches the customer expectation. Customers will
compare and judge an entity’s performance by a perceived service quality of overall activities
service (Lewis and Booms, 1983). Therefore, service quality influences the customer’s
buying judgment. The service quality of the airline industry depends on their staff, including
captains, flight attendances, ground staffs, and other employee in related field. The quality of
personal service is intimately connected to the relationship between passengers and service
persons. Customers can generate a good or bad attitude from the ability and skills of staffs.
The service quality is affected by whether the airline employees who are able to perform
the promised service without any mistake, moreover, it is considered as the significant point
50
that have an effect on the purchasing decisions of low cost airline passengers in Thailand
(Charoensettasilp and Wu, 2013).
Flight Management:
The third important dimension is flight management. The four factors under this
dimension are punctuality, flight availability, flight announcement, and flight compensation,
respectively.
Flight management can be described as the professional skills to manage and organize
all activities associated with air flight including, on-time schedule, flight availability, flight
announcement, the payment of compensation, and the service which will be delivered to
passengers before, during, and after flight. Thus, airline needs to demonstrate how competent
it is, in order to give passengers the assurance for satisfaction.
Hamidi et al. (2013) mentions that the major part of flight management, including
proper announcement about flight cancellations and delays, timely flight, and proper flight
time. Qin (2012) considers flight management significantly affecting low cost airline
passenger’s satisfaction and loyalty in Thailand, especially, by keeping passengers within the
schedules or appointment times.
Airline Aircraft:
It is the least important dimension. The four factors under this dimension are comfort,
cleanliness, facilities, and entertainment, respectively.
Airline aircraft is referred to everything relates to the aircraft including the tangible,
such as machine, engine, amusement and accommodation equipment, and the intangible, such
as cleanliness and comfort.
The Airline aircraft is in the last ranking of dimensions, however, most of Thai
passengers still concern with the commodious of the cabin seat on board since it enables them
to be relaxed and comfortable. Thai passengers desire for comfort (Neher, 1979). Qin (2012)
describes that the attractive and suitable physical facilities, both at the airport and on the
airplane affect Thai low cost airline passenger’s satisfaction and loyalty. Charoensettasilp and
Wu (2013) find the comfortable factors related to seat on board, and easy to use shelf space
for baggage, which affect the attitude and need of Thai passengers when selecting domestic
51
low cost airline. Nochais (2014) explains that new modern aircraft and comfortable cabin seat
could influence Thai passengers on selecting decision towards domestic low cost airlines.
Therefore, it cannot be neglected for marketing manager, and it may regard as an additional
option by passengers to choose a LCA.
The Analysis of Important of Factors under Each Dimension
The Rank of Factors under Airline Corporate Dimension
From Table 4.2, the rank of factors under airline corporate dimension by local weight is
(1) price, which is the most important factor accounting for 29.117%, (2) safety record,
27.687%, (3) brand image, 13.968%, while, (4) promotion and advertising, 12.551%, (5)
service supply chain, 10.807%, and (6) alliance, which is the least important factor,
accounting for 5.870%, respectively.
Price
Price is the most important factor under airline corporate dimension for Thai passengers
when they make a decision to select a low cost airline.
Examining the passenger’s demographic data, we find that the average monthly income
of Thai passengers is between 14,000-30,000 THB, and they take the flight for traveling
purpose, who are considered as a middle class of salary in Thailand since the value of GDP
(per capita) from National Economic and Social Development Board of Thailand in 2016, is
16, 778.57 THB (SCB EIC, 2011). Therefore, the salary of this class is difficult for them to
take the full service airline, because the full airfare ticket is more expensive and
approximately two times than the ticket of low cost airline (Lawton, 2002; O’Connell and
Williams, 2005). Moreover, passengers in this study travelling with airline average 5 times
per year, this means that they need to spend at least 8,500 THB per year for air transportation
since the average airfare of low cost airline is 1,617 THB (Suriya, 2009), and 8,500 THB is a
big amount for them. Besides, The Center for Economic and Business Forecasting in
Thailand (2015) indicates that the costs such as oil, energy, electricity, and transportation are
increasing, and this leads to cost of living continuously to increase in Thailand.
Therefore, most of Thai passengers would like to purchase product or service with an
attitude to spend less, in other words, they try everything to save money. Thai low cost
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passengers prefer to select the low fare rather than the suitable of flight time, and most of
them have less concern about punctuality than attractive low ticket fare (Thanasupsin et al.,
2010).
Safety Record
For the safety record, it is the second important factor under airline corporate
dimension. First Thai passengers particularly concern with the safety report for airplane
transportation because the air transportation is considered as the most safety mode compare
to other transportations. However, when accident occurs, it will cause a lot of casualties than
other transportations. Low cost airlines need to cut down the low fare of ticket, which may
result in the carriers may ignore the safety issue (Pipatchaisiri, 2012). Therefore, Thai
passengers consider the safety record as one of the important factor for them to select low
cost airline.
Second, there are a lot of airline accidents in recent years. From the safety record of
IATA during 2010 to 2014 shows that the number of passenger airline accidents has reached
323 accidents, divided into 58 fatal accidents and 265 non-fatal accidents. Moreover, the
accident rate, relating to the damage to aircraft and the medical/injury component pertaining
to accidents with serious or fatal injuries to persons, increase 0.36, from 0.33 in 2013 to 0.69
in 2014.
Third, Thai passengers are concerned about the health status of airline staffs. The
staffs usually need to work in different tasks, as well as, work in day shift and night shift, or
sometimes with the delayed aircraft, and it may result in many staffs need to work for very
long hours of flight. These situations may influence the health status of staffs; therefore, they
are not able to manage the quality of safety well enough. For example, if the cabin crews
catch a cold, the contamination can directly be distributed to the passengers, or in case of the
captains do not take a rest sufficiently, which may lead them to perform a lower efficiency of
controlling airplane as well (Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen, 2013).
Finally, airlines of Thailand have to face the higher international safety standard.
According to the data from ICAO (2015), no new charter flights operating by airlines
registered in Thailand would be allowed to fly to Japanese airports because of the concerns
that these carriers may not meet the international safety standards. Thai passengers may hope
53
the domestic LCAs could meet the international safety standard soon, thus they consider
safety record is important.
Brand Image
Brand image is the perception about a brand as reflected by the brand association held
in consumers’ memory (Keller, 1993). The third important factor under airline corporate
dimension is brand image.
The reason may be that Thai passengers perceive brand image through personal
service quality of staffs, for example, passengers perceive Nok Air with “a smile on every
flights” since “Nok” means “bird” in Thai language and it symbolizes friendship and freedom
to travel (Vongthai, 2013). Thus, Nok Air provides customers satisfaction through friendly
and caring service delivered by staffs, and passengers are treated as if they are unique and
special (N Ayutthaya, 2013). While Air Asia positions their brand with the slogan of “now
everyone can fly”, offering the best price and safety among airline service providers (Yasin
and David 2014), and One-Two-Go airline, uniquely distinguishes as itself as the Asia’s only
low cost carrier offering the “one-price policy” to all destinations (Realrangsutthar, 2007).
Therefore, if the airline carrier has an effective strategy toward branding which will enhance
staff service quality, as well as create the differentiation. A positive brand image is important,
because trusting in brand image significantly predicts the brand loyalty of Thai passengers,
and affects the intention of Thai passengers in making decision on purchase and repurchase
purpose of low cost airline (Anuwichanont, 2011; N Ayutthaya, 2013).
Promotion and Advertising
Promotion and advertising is the fourth important factor under airline corporate
dimension. Promotion and advertising is related to the activities persuading consumers to buy
product or service, and communicate the product or service to customers via various kinds of
distribution channels, therefore, it much concerns with how to change passenger’s attitude
toward airline.
Promotion and advertising is essential for Thai passengers to select low cost airline, by
through the message from website, TVC (Television Commercial), magazine, newspaper
print, application, billboard, and social network. Website is the most important marketing
distribution channel for low cost airline (Agsorndee, 2011). Receiving flight notification from
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smartphone is also important, because the public relation is effectively established and it is a
convenient way that connects product or service information, such as the latest news of ticket
price, to Thai passengers promptly (Nochai, 2014).
Moreover, price is the most influencing factor in buying decision, therefore, sale
promotion is necessary for Thai passengers, especially, the discounted ticket fare on
promotion activities that many low cost airlines frequently launch to reach the passengers
demand (Pipatchaisiri, 2012). Nok Air always provides the sale promotion on “midnight
sale”, reserving the discounted ticket only between 9:00 am-9:00 pm, while Air Asia
continuously offers the “big sale campaign” with 0 baht ticket promotion to grasp the price-
sensitive passengers. Other promotion activities include the privileges for special passengers,
and the frequent flyer program that can create the loyalty of members. For example, Air Asia
offers “Big” program for members, who can earn points by taking Air Asia flight, then use
the points to redeem flights to over 100 destinations in Air Asia's network, have priority
access to sale promotion, or redeem hotel stay (airasiabig.com, 2015). In contrast, Nok Air
provides “Nok fanclub” for members to redeem the flight, increase the loading baggage, free
premium seat selection, priority to access promotion, and priority check in from notification
calling (nokfanclub.com, 2015).
Providing the attractive promotion to boost up the pricing strategy is also useful, for
example, the co-promotion between airlines and hotels or rental car companies. Or else,
launch promotion activities to the targeted group, for example, Thai government officers, the
most frequent flyer group under this study, so as to give them extra privileges such as free
extra baggage allowance for sport equipment, free premium seat, or free changing of travel
itinerary 24 hours before departure. Use promotion activities during low demand months. In
addition to the free seats promotion, which is usually held in January and November, provide
attractive discount in other months. Or penetrate to the social media channels which account
for hard-core sales.
Service Supply Chain
Service supply chain is the fifth important factor under airline corporate dimension.
Service supply chain is concerned with the planning and management of activities from
support functions to the delivery of end-user services (Voudouris et al., 2008). It is a
55
significant feature of low cost airlines that they strive to obtain operational efficiency and
economies of scale to lessen costs significantly then to reduce price.
The interesting point is that Thai passengers concern about the procedure carrying them
to keep flight on time without missing the plane, therefore, in the check in process, there
should have enough time for staffs to handle any congestion situations, in particularly, during
the rush hour with crowded passengers (Klamsaengsai, 2014).
However, in Thailand, the proper position of check-in counters, the number and location
of baggage claiming belts, and the number of connecting gates are not yet sufficient for all
flights at the airports, and the allocation of the gates is also not consistency (Klamsaengsai
and Choibamroong, 2015).
Alliance
Alliance is the least important factor under the airline corporate dimension. Some of the
low-cost carriers would like to expand their network to whichever routes they can continue
operating with extra returns on investment. The low costs airline will use alliances tactic to
improve its profit by attract more transfer passengers. Moreover, alliance allows the airline to
reduce ticket price and flight frequency, but provides more destinations within easy reach, or
shorter travel times (Bilotkach and Hüschelrath, 2011).
However, Thai passengers less concern the factor of alliance since nowadays there is
only Thai airways, the full service airline, participants in the star alliance, one of the three
global alliance (Lopez, 2013).
The Rank of Factors under Service Quality Dimensions
From Table 4.2, the rank of factors under service quality dimension by local weight is
(1) reliability, which is the most important factor accounting for 28.990%, (2) responsiveness,
accounting for 27.231%, (3) empathy, 16.288%, while, (4) tangible, 13.750%, and (5)
assurance, which is the least important, accounting for 13.741%, respectively.
Reliability
Reliability is the most important factor under service quality dimension. It denotes an
ability to perform the service dependably and accurately. Reliability is perceived through the
56
eyes of Thai passengers from the personal performance of staffs, because reliability means
that staffs perform the promise of service accurately, without any mistake, and ultimately the
history of accident reports (Qin, 2012; Klamsaengsai, 2014).
The staffs have competency to manage the check-in process and the boarding process
on-time, as well as, the time of arrival and departure, are important as it influences the
satisfaction and loyalty of Thai passengers (Qin, 2012; Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen, 2013).
However, if reliability is poor, it will cause the complaint that will lead to negative
influence on the image and survival of airline (Campbell et al., 2011; Boshoff & Staude,
2003), but when service reliability improved, it will achieve sustained customer satisfaction
and loyalty (Jones and Sasser, 1995). Especially, all airlines in fact were perceived relatively
poor on the attribute of punctual reliable flights (Campbell and Ellis, 2012). Guangming et al.
(2015) describes that one of the problem of poor service reliability causing delayed flights is
unforeseen service interruptions due to technical failures. Therefore, the airline maintenance
staffs need to sustain the effectiveness of aircrafts by the development of time standard,
interchangeability and modified fleet structure, TPM (Total Productive Maintenance)
implementation, and lean manufacturing application for process improvement.
Responsiveness
Responsiveness is the second important factor under service quality dimension.
Responsiveness is a willingness to help passengers as well as promptly response to service
request.
Thai low cost passenger’s concern about whether staffs have the eagerness as well as
willingness to assist service request. Low cost airline has to save the cabin crew cost
(Doganis, 2010). Therefore, the airline employees need to do a lot of works, since the number
of employees is limited, it may result in that the staffs are busy, and they are reluctance to
solve passengers’ problems (Qin, 2012). Moreover, the staffs may have unfriendly manners
to provide the service, and this point is possible to affect the repeat purchase decisions of
passengers (Techarattanased, 2014).
Snyder and Tai (2014) suggest that the airline staffs should improve unfriendly attitude
so as to improve passenger’s satisfaction. Low cost airline should pay attention on in front
airline staffs to equip them with customer service skills, and train staffs to be patient when
57
solving problems with passengers, having calm and cheerful attitudes with customers when
facing work pressure. Witchayakawin (2015) suggests that airline should be more efficient in
fast and on time handling of passengers’ requirement as responsiveness affects the future use
and recommendation of passengers.
Empathy
The third important factor under the service quality dimension is empathy. Empathy
means that the staffs take care of the passengers with heart. Staffs have the ability to figure
out passenger minds, understand passengers problem with interested, as well as listen and pay
attention to passengers.
The empathy is important for passenger perception on the expectation and behavioral
intention (Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen, 2013). Thai passengers perceive the empathy
through the tenderness, caring and helpfulness of airline staffs who could demonstrate or give
sincerity to each passenger during their works, such as leading passenger to their seat,
introducing dishes on board, online booking, and frequent flyer schemes to passengers.
Furthermore, staffs pay attention on providing the wheelchair service to sick passengers, as
well as to the handicapped persons (Lerrthaitrakul and Panjakajornsak, 2014).
However, if there is no perceived empathy, service quality will not meet the passengers’
expectation. Therefore, low cost airline should improve the service skills of check-in staffs,
otherwise, the availability of the service personnel in the counter is meaningless if they
cannot attentively comprehend to solve the customers’ complaints or problems (Ratanakomut
and Kitcharoen, 2013; Amiruddi, 2013).
Tangible
The fourth important factor under the service quality dimension is tangible. Tangible
generally shows in the physical characteristics of staffs such as neat and appropriate uniform.
Low cost airline staffs usually wear very casual and proactive. Most of the check-in
staffs just wear the polo shirt with jeans on weekends since most of the low cost airlines
concentrate on the saving issue with lowest price (Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen, 2013).
Therefore, low cost airline will usually save the cost of staff uniform. However, the
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appropriate attire of staffs is necessary because it influences the expectations and satisfaction
of Thai low cost passengers (Charoensettasilp and Wu, 2014).
Assurance
The fifth important factor under the service quality dimension is assurance. Assurance
refers to the knowledge and courtesy of team staffs, so as to give trust and confidence to
passengers.
It is the least important factor because Thai low cost passengers usually perceive that the
cabin crew’s job knowledge and courtesy is not sufficiently for performing their tasks. Thai
passengers concern the language and communication skill, such as instill speaking with the
confidence of their language proficiency, polite questions and sentences providing to
passengers since it is important to passenger satisfaction (Vongthai, 2013). Moreover, in term
of courtesy, Thai passengers still have no confidence and trust in the cabin crews of low cost
airline comparing with the full service airline (Mankongvanichkul, 2010).
The Ranks of Factors under Flight Management Dimension
From Table 4.2, the rank of factors under flight management dimension is (1)
punctuality, which is the most important factor, and accounting for 43.472%, (2) flight
availability, 26.599%, (3) flight announcement, 16.614%, and (4) flight compensation, which
is the least important, and accounting for 13.315%, respectively.
Punctuality
Punctuality is the most important factor under the flight management dimension.
Punctuality means to manage things at the designated or appointed time and it is a key
attribute of satisfaction for many air passengers (Cook et al., 2009).
The on time performance is considered as one of the most important criteria for Thai
passengers. Thai passengers prefer to choose full service airline as the punctuality of full
service airline, in comparison with that of low cost airline, is much better (Thanasupsin et al.,
2010). The average punctuality from statistic of the Air Travel Intelligence (2015) indicated
that the average on time performance (OTP) of full service is approximately 88.6% while low
cost airline is 83.1%.
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The delayed flights usually occur with low cost airline in Thailand (Pipatchaisiri, 2012).
That effect of poor punctuality costs passengers, airports, and airlines a considerable amount
of moneys (Wu and Cave, 2003). Especially, the damages of passengers consist of loss of
time, money, business opportunity, and quality of life (Embraer, 2009).
The main reasons of delayed flight can be classified into two types, controllable and
uncontrollable reasons. For example, the weather condition belongs to the uncontrollable
reasons, as the weather may be not proper for aircraft to fly up (FAA, 2008). In 2013, due to
Typhoon USAGI and severe weather conditions caused Air Asia to delay or cancel flights
(Air Asia, 2013).
On the other hand, the controllable reasons may result from the operations of airline. For
example, the delayed flights of Nok Air on Mother’s day of Thailand, August 8, 2015, which
are caused from the troubled check-in systems.
The controllable reasons may also result from the way of time allocation. Since the low
cost airline needs to reduce the operation cost, to have the maximum utilization of aircraft
(Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen, 2013), the turnaround time of aircraft is rather fast, about 25–
35 minutes, comparing to full service carriers about 45 to 60 minute (Postorino, 2010). In
addition, the performance of service supply chain of Thai low cost airline has not been
operated well enough, e.g., the number of connecting gates is not yet sufficient, the allocation
at the gates is not consistency, as well as the aerobridge provided and transfer bus service
from bay is still lacking (Klamsaengsai and Choibamroong, 2015). Therefore, it can cause the
low cost passengers unable to catch the flight on time, or else, it possibly affects the
connected flight passengers (Assawaphisarnboon and Prachayanipon, 2010).
Because of the above, poor performance of punctuality causes the offensive feeling of
Thai low cost airline passengers (Assawaphisarnboon and Prachayanipon, 2010).
Flight Availability
The second important factor under flight management is flight availability. Flight
available is significant for Thai low cost passengers because the convenient flight schedule
will affect the behavioral intention and passenger satisfaction (Saha, 2009). However, the
convenience of flight of low cost airline is worse than full service airline because full service
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airline offers more frequent flights, from higher routes, especially in the peak time, than low
cost airline (Gillen and Morrison, 2003).
Most of the tickets of low cost airline can be sold in advance, particularly, in the special
occasions of promotion activities, therefore, low cost airlines need to efficiently manage the
flight schedules and attempt to minimize the risk of empty seats (Charoensettasilp and Wu,
2013). Therefore, when there is no available flight, it may cause the journey disturbance for
passengers with missing an important business meeting or being late to a close friend’s
wedding ceremony (Rose, 2014). As well as, when passengers encounter with unforeseen
schedule disruption from the original scheduled itinerary or booked service, it can cause
passengers with delays, cancellation, and diversion (Barnhart et al., 2014)
Thai low cost passengers would like to fly with cheaper and lesser congestion of aircraft,
and low cost airlines just provide the flights that are early in the morning or late in the
evening to avoid air traffic congestion and take advantage of lower landing fees
(Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen, 2013). However, the irregular flight time may affect the
decision of Thai passengers as they need to wake up early in the morning for catching the
airplane, or go to bed lately at night, therefore, passengers will be difficult to sleep and relax
on board, in particularly, for the passengers who suffer from insomnia condition.
Flight Announcement
The third important factor under flight management dimension is flight announcement.
Flight announcement includes declaring information before and on boarding, such as
announcement of flight schedules, properly notifying customers in case of flight delay or
flight cancellation, as well as sufficient flight information through the ground staffs, and
demonstrating the safety instruction on board from cabin crew, and the announcement from
captain.
The information that the cabin crew and captain announce influences Thai passenger’s
satisfaction (Charoensettasilp and Wu, 2014). However, if there is no airline flight
announcement or poor communication with passengers, such as the announcement of
boarding, door closure, safety demonstration, take off or ascent, turbulence encounter,
descent or final landing, it will lead to the passengers dissatisfaction and may even put
anxious fliers at increasing (Cail, 2016).
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Flight Compensations
The least important factor under flight management dimension is flight compensation.
Though flight compensation is considered as the least important factor under flight
management dimension, passengers still concern as it directly affects the satisfaction of
passengers on service recovery (Wen and Chi, 2013).
In 2010, the ministry of transportation in Thailand announces that for the delayed
flights, both of the short delayed flights and the long delayed flights as well as flight
cancellation, passengers could obtain compensation from airline. If the flight delays between
2-3 hours, Thai airline needs to support passengers with free of meal, beverage and
communication equipment like mobile phone or email to contact with the airline, or return
full price of air ticket. However, if the flights delays between 3-5 hours, airline needs to
compensate passengers with the same as between 2-3 hours or change the flight, change to
other transportations as fast as possible; while flight delayed between 5-6 hours, airline needs
to redeem in the same way as between 3-5 hours, and redeem with 600 THB simultaneously.
In case of flight delays more than 6 hours, or flight cancellation, airline needs to support
passengers in the same way as delayed between 3-5 hours, and support passengers with
resting place, as well as redeem with 1,200 THB simultaneously. However, through the eyes
of Thai low cost passengers, these kinds of compensations may be not sufficient when
comparing to the risk and loss result from losing time, opportunity, money, and feeling.
The Rank of Factors under Airline Aircraft Dimensions
From Table 4.2, the rank of factors under airline aircraft dimension is (1) comfort, which
is the most important factor, accounting for 34.999%, (2) cleanliness, 33.286%, (3) facilities,
21.343%, and (4) entertainment, which is the least important factor, accounting for 10.372%,
respectively.
Comfort
The most important factor under the airline aircraft dimension is comfort. The term of
comfort might be used to describe a feeling of contentment, a sense of coziness, or a state of
physical and mental well-being (Bardwick, 1995; O’Toole, 1995). It affects passengers’
perception of low cost and full service airlines (O’Connell and Williams, 2005). The low cost
airlines mostly offer one class of seating to allow more seats per aircraft than full service
62
airline (Thanasupsin et al., 2010). Moreover, they do not serve the reservation of seat because
they want to encourage passengers to board the aircraft early and quickly (Štimac and Vince,
2013). However, they will sell some seats at higher price instead.
Low cost airlines have limited comfort during whole journey since there is higher
density of seats than full service airlines, for example, the size of cabin seats or legroom is
smaller. Area in which passengers could stretch their legs is narrow as the low cost aircraft is
a single type of aircraft, as well as only one class seating, so this is concerned as a seat
allocation problem (Charoensettasilp and Wu, 2013). The seating discomfort will cause
passengers with neck disturbance because of sitting after one hour (Tan et al., 2013). Besides,
the excessive stress may cause passengers to become aggressive and over-reaction, and even
dangerous to passenger’s health, therefore, seat in-trouble will affect Thai low cost
passengers on airline expectation (Tan et al., 2010).
Furthermore, the limitation of free baggage allowance, results in many passengers carry
some non-necessary stuffs onto the airplane which may disturb the area of sitting or the
overhead compartment, results in passengers do not meet their expectation because
passengers feel uncomfortable (Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen, 2013).
Cleanliness
The second important factor under flight management dimension is cleanliness.
Nowadays, the topic of cleanliness has become an increasingly important factor for
passengers to select low cost airline.
The cleanliness refers to the overall image of hygiene premise within the airplane, both
of the cabin cleanliness as well as toilet and the washroom cleanliness (Qin, 2012; Nochais,
2014). The employees of low cost airline need to work in multiple roles, for instance, flight
attendants need to clean the aircraft or work as gate agent (Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen,
2013). Therefore, the hygiene might not be good enough in the viewpoints of Thai low cost
passengers, especially, in the passengers who are worried about hygiene or the passengers
who have some health trouble that can be affected by the non-hygienic conditions. The poor
cabin hygiene will cause the risk of infectious diseases, particularly to vulnerable groups such
as the very young or elderly people suffering from diseases. Some unhappy passengers may
submit negative comments, and some passengers are more likely to stop using an airline with
poor cleanliness standards rather than registering a complaint (Skytrax.com). Therefore, the
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items for personal passenger must be clean, as well as, washroom hygiene which can be a
factor across all cabin type (Jones, 2007).
Facility
The third important factor under airline aircraft dimension is facility. Facility is located
in the area of aircraft and cabin. However, some low cost airlines own the old model of
aircrafts (Cha, 2013), which the appearance of aircrafts is old and out of date and Thai
passengers do not like. Thai passengers feel satisfy with a new and modern design of aircraft,
and passengers feel convenient to use of a new aircraft (Charoensettasilp and Wu, 2013).
Moreover, in-flight catering and other “complimentary” services are usually eliminated since
low cost airlines offer optional paid instead, like fee charge for on board food and beverage
(Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen, 2013). Usually, low cost airline does not provide things like
pillow and blanket, or in some cases, there are lack of comfortable air conditioner and light
overhead (Štimac et al., 2012), Therefore, It will cause passengers feel unsatisfied.
In term of free in-flight Wi-Fi, this is still limited on Thai low cost carriers, and there is
only Nok Air offers free Wi-Fi for passengers during the trip. For example, Nok Thong
Chompoo, a Boeing 737-800 (NG), Nok Bussarakam, a Boeing 737-86J (WL), and Nok
Sanook, a Boeing 737-8AS (WL), free Wi-Fi service are limited only in these three models of
aircrafts (Annual report of Nok Air, 2015).
Entertainment
The least important factor under flight management dimension is entertainment. The
entertainment refers to in-flight entertainment system available for passengers during the
flight, such as magazines, newspapers, video games, and head phone, as well as the media on
aircraft such as radio, television screen, and cinemas (Lerrthaitrakul and Panjakajornsak,
2014). Since the electronic system installed in the cabin consumes a lot of fuel, therefore, low
cost airline will usually eliminate all forms of free on-board services (Vidović et al., 2013).
Low cost airlines have lots of short haul flights, less than 5 hours (IATA, 2012), which
passengers may not have enough time to obtain relaxation or enjoyment like they are on the
full service airlines. Or else, the flight schedule is in the midnight, the passengers need to
sleep thus they pay no attention to the on board entertainment. Moreover, Thai passengers do
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not consider the entertainment service because it does not influence the post purchase
behavioral intention as well (Lerrthaitrakul and Panjakajornsak, 2014).
The Analysis of Important of Factors
From Table 4.2 via global weight analyses, we find the six most important factors as
well as the two least important factors. The sixth most important factors are (1) price, under
airline corporate dimension, accounting for 10.11%, (2) Punctuality, under flight
management dimension, 9.90%, (3) safety record, under airline corporate dimension, 9.62%,
(4) reliability, under service quality, 7.68%, (5) responsiveness, under service quality, 7.22%
and (6) flight availability, under flight management, accounting for 6.06%. While the two
least important factors are (18) Alliance, under airline corporate, 2.04%, and (19)
entertainment, the least important factor under airline aircraft, accounting for 1.66%
Price
In the views of Thai passengers the general consideration that driving Thai passengers
on purchasing behavior is price consciousness and reasonable price is considered as a crucial
factor for them (Napompech, 2014; Chatchotitham and Soponprapapon, 2011). Although,
Thai passengers perceive that there are other numerous advantages of products or service, it
has been found that price consciousness is concerned as the most important factor affecting
them to make purchase decisions than any other factors (Nopporn, 1998; Kingpayome, 2003).
From the analysis of Thai passenger’s personal data, most of them take flight for non-
business purpose, which price is important for them as this market segment is a price-
sensitive group (Mason, 2000; Buapiban, 2015), as well as, the range of monthly income of
Thai passengers is 14,000-30,000 THB, who live in the low to medium level in Thailand
(SCB EIC, 2011). In addition, from the data of BOT (Bank of Thailand), regarding to
Thailand economic performance in Jan 2016, which shows that the export to ASEAN is slow
down, resulting from the economic slowdown in major trading partner’s economy, it
indicates that the overall economic performance in Thailand is locating in the negative trend,
therefore, Thai passengers, particularly in the low income group, will consider much more in
the price issue.
Furthermore, Yeoh and Chan (2011) find that price is the most influential criteria for the
repeat purchase in Malaysian low cost airline passengers even they expressed strongly
65
dissatisfaction towards the low cost airlines service quality, and this point means that they
mainly concern price factor more than other factors. Atalik and Ozdemir (2015) also claim
that price is already known to be important for domestic passengers.
Punctuality
The second important factor is punctuality. Punctuality is an important factor affecting
passenger satisfaction (Khuong and Uyen, 2014). Low cost airline can help to lessen
congested airports comparing with the full service airline since low cost airline is able to
reduce the average flight times and delay incidents. Thus, low cost airline started to attract
business travelers who value both punctuality and frequency (Daraban, 2012). However, from
2006 to 2012, on time performance was considered as the biggest progression topic for many
low cost airline carriers, e.g., AirTran Airways, Southwest, and JetBlue, because they
perceive that delayed flights will cause a lot of complaints from passengers, and the
punctuality can decrease these complaints to improve customer satisfaction (Baker, 2014).
For the low cost airlines in Thailand, flight delay occurs regularly since flight delay is on
the top ten risks that passengers perceive when they fly with low cost airline in Thailand
(Corbitt and Canh, 2004). Flight delay may cause the poor performance of service of low cost
airlines in Thailand. It has not been administrated well enough as there are inefficient process
in many areas, e.g., poor in allocation and lacking of the necessary things to catch up with the
important tasks (Klamsaengsai and Choibamroong, 2015). It is obviously seen in Nok Air,
flight delay constantly happened in Mother’s day, in August 2015, and February 2016,
because of the troubled operation system and there were a lot of pilots making strike.
However, the concept of punctuality in airline industry has gradually developed, from the
statistic, the most punctual low cost carriers worldwide in 2014-2015, especially, in Asia, is
Thai Air Asia.
In our research, price is more important than punctuality. The main reason is that most
of Thai passengers less concern about punctuality than low fares, and there are still several
complaints about the punctuality of low cost airline (Department of Civil Aviation, 2008).
Moreover, Yeoh and Chan (2011) mention that on-time departure and arrival is important for
passengers of Malaysian low cost carrier even they perceive that delay is not a pleasant
experience, but they much delight with lowest price ticket fare.
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Safety Record
The third important factor affecting Thai passengers to select low cost airline is safety
record. Chang and Hung (2013) find that the safety standard of low cost airline is much
concerned by passengers than full service airline since it can reduce the intention to select
low cost carrier.
Passengers evaluate the safety record of low cost airline basing on the perception of
individual believed in safety standard, as well as the perception of airline safety procedures,
and publicly available safety information (Macário et al., 2007; Buapiban, 2015). Low cost
airline is considered to have lower investment in aircraft maintenance, fleet technology, and
the ability of captain (Macário et al., 2007). Flight accidents have occurred recently years,
especially, about plane crash of low cost airline, e g., Air Asia Flight 8501 in December
2014.
Airline safety is significant, since low cost passengers may perceived that the low cost
carrier is less safe, lower than traditional airline (Mikulic & Prebezak, 2011; Macário et al.,
2007). However, a lot of low cost airlines have flawless safety report (Sokolovskyy, 2012)
and no evidence claimed that low cost airline has lower standards of safety than full service
airlines (Macário et al., 2007).
However, safety issues have not been considered as the major problems for the Thai
airline industry during the last two decades even if there are an increasing number of low cost
airlines (Manvichien, 2015). These facts are consistent with the results of this research that
safety record is only concerned as the third factor impacting Thai passengers to select low
cost airline, followed price, and punctuality. The reason might be that passengers routinely
rated airlines as being less safe than their actual safety records and this suggests that
passengers overlook of accurate information about airline safety. Thus, passenger perception
of safety may differ substantially from the actual safety of the airline (Buaphiban, 2015). The
second reason might be that the communications of cabin crews have not met the satisfaction
of Thai passengers, especially, the speed on announcement during in-flight safety
demonstration (Witchayakawin, 2015). Ariffin et al. (2013) describe that the safety procedure
issues affect the satisfaction of low cost airline passengers, in particular, the level of
communications regarding unusual circumstances. For example, turbulence in the sky is
related to convection, mechanical, mountains-wave, wake and clear air, these might be the
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leading causes of in-flight injury to passengers and airline employees (Golding, 2002). Quick
announcement of turbulence can avoid damages.
Reliability
The fourth important factor is reliability. Service reliability is a crucial issue in the air
transportation as it is one of the most important reasons for airline selection, especially
between low cost airline and full service airline, which most of the low cost passengers will
prefer to choose low cost airline from their perception of service reliability (Sokolovskyy,
2012).
The reliability in low cost airline mainly concentrates on the point of ensuring
passengers to trust regarding safeness and timeliness (Brady and Conin, 2001). Reliability
represents the overall performance of competent staffs who can meet the passengers need
before, during, and after the flight, in other words, staffs are able to maintain a good
performance under the scheduled time without any mistake, such as, accurately manage
airline process, punctuality to the final destination, and sustain the safety. However, service
reliability of low cost airline is generally evaluated to be underperformed by passengers.
However, there is no evidence that low cost airline has lower standard of safety than full
service airline, furthermore, for the on-time performance record of low cost airlines is often
higher than full service ones (Macário et al., 2007; Sokolovskyy, 2012).
Thai passengers recognize service reliability through the staffs who perform their
service. The competency of speed and accurate operation, timing, and securement, are crucial
for passenger satisfaction and loyalty in low cost airline. In particular, the waiting time for
check-in, on-time flight, security condition such as baggage state, and safety confidence are
important (Ratanakomut and Kitcharoen, 2013; Qin, 2012). Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013)
claim that overall performance of speed in cabin crew and ground service affects attitude,
need, and satisfaction of Thai passengers in selecting low cost airline. Although, reliability is
somewhat significant, it is not considered as much satisfaction enough (Sokolovskyy, 2012).
The reason might be that even reliability plays an important role in the aspect of service
quality, passengers view it as the intermediate procedure for taking them to reach the final
intention, such as safety and punctuality, due to the service reliability that they experienced is
less visible than safety and punctuality issue.
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Responsiveness
The fifth important factor is responsiveness. Responsiveness relates to the capability of
service operation from all airline staffs that provided and delivered through the heartily
responding toward the individual passenger with the effective and qualified performance in
any situation (Khuong and Uyen, 2014). Or else, the airline staffs are able to sincerely present
their enthusiasm and readiness, as well as, willingness and friendliness to assist airline
passengers reaching their requirements (Qin, 2012). The responsiveness refers to all of the
activities including prompt in handling complaints, prompt in service delivery, efficient
guidance to assist passengers, and friendliness to help passengers (Jensen, 2009; Chen and
Chang, 2005). Huang (2010) suggests that responsiveness is the most important factor for
passenger’s airline selection. The reason might be that responsiveness is one of the most
necessary factors from passenger satisfaction influencing airline performance (Yayla-Kullu
and Tansitpong, 2013).
In term of low cost airline, responsiveness is majorly concentrated on the ability of
airline staffs to be willingness to assist passengers, specifying delivery times, altering aspects
of the delivery process, and ensuring that passengers remain involved during the service
attribute (Qin, 2012). Low cost airline passengers have a high expectation on responsiveness
towards staffs taking charge of the troubles. When problems are aroused, the staffs do not
perform the professional arrangement to make sure all passengers understand the current
situation (Amiruddin, 2013), then passenger become unsatisfied.
From the viewpoint of Thai low cost passengers, responsiveness is one of the most
important factor affecting Thai passengers to select low cost airline, however, it is not
enormously significant to affect passengers on purchase behavioral intention (Lerrthaitrakul
and Panjakajornsak, 2014). Thai low cost passengers perceive that staffs help passengers to
cancel their flight, to assist or response to the losing luggage, or to provide promptly help in
any emergency cases, and these jobs do not be performed well. Passengers concern that
responsiveness, in the term of promptly service, is regarded as an important factor of
passenger’s expectation (Kholthanasep, 2001). In contrast, dissatisfaction occurred when
passengers did not receive promptly service as they need (Mankongvanichkul, 2010). The
reason might be that staffs are too busy to provide prompt and good services to passengers.
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Flight Availability
The sixth important factor is flight availability. Basically, flight availability is regarding
to that airlines could provide available seat, convenient flight schedules, high frequent flight,
as well as offering the accessible flights from given routes to passengers, and the well
sequenced flight (Park, 2007; Kon 1999). Flight availability is concerned as an important
issue that it is one of the primary factor influencing passengers on airline selection. Full
service airlines attempt to gain more passengers than their competitors from offering more
flexible flights because passengers value the convenience of a flight schedule with multiple
departure and arrival times which they are much able to find a flight that is closer to their
desired departure and arrival time (Richard, 2003). Moreover, the available seats and
frequency of flights of full service airline are better (Kee, 2015; Fourie and Lubbe, 2006;
Castillo-Manzano & Marchena-Gómez, 2010). In addition, the flight availability has a
significant impact on reducing delayed flights. The reason is that the increasing number of
fights is able to reduce the density in traffic flow of routes (Richard, 2003). Furthermore, in
term of airline carriers, flight availability is considered as an important issue that the greater
flight frequency allows the airline to charge a higher fare to the passengers (Brueckner and
Zhang, 2001).
In term of the low cost airline, flight availability is one of the important factors that have
an effect on the low cost airline selection (Ha, 2010). The interesting reason might be that
non-stop flight option is considered as one of the essential factor since passengers are highly
risk averse and try to avoid transfers and connections if possible (Theis et al., 2006). Low
cost airline provide the direct point to point flights without transferring flight (Castillo-
Manzano & Marchena-Gómez, 2010; Štimac et al., 2011). Sarker (2010) also describes that
flight availability is one of the crucial factor affecting the sustainable and growth of low cost
airlines, it is because that the increasing frequency on certain routes could help the low cost
airlines to generate the maximum yield and capacity on each flight and meet passenger
expectations. Besides, Snyder (2014) claims that low cost airlines should improve the flight
availability, in particularly, providing reasonable flight schedules which ought to have a
suitable flight times.
For Thai low cost passengers, flight availability is concerned as the important factor
affecting Thai passengers to select low cost airline. According to the personal characteristics
of passengers, most of the respondents are in the tourism group which the flight availability is
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more essential for this kind of leisure travelers group (Sokolovskyy, 2012). However, the
flight availability is rated in the moderately important factor in this study. The possible
reasons come from the insufficient seat available as a result of immediately sold out
(Charoensettasilp and Wu, 2013). As well as Thai low cost passengers might perceive that the
number of routes, the access of routes and the schedule of flights have not reached passenger
expectation and satisfaction (Buapiban, 2015). Another unsurprisingly reason is that Thai low
cost passengers have a tendency to be price-sensitive, therefore, they are willing to accept the
original routes or destination routes with lesser convenient of the departure and arrival times
in the replacement for obtaining cheaper ticket airfares (Davison & Ryley, 2010).
Alliance
The second least important factor is alliance. Airline alliances emerged from demand
related conditions, i.e., the economic globalization has created demand for intercontinental
flights, and supply-related conditions, i.e., long intercontinental flights need one or more
stops and require an interline journey provided by different airlines (Keyne, 2009). One of the
reasons that low cost airlines make an alliance is to expand their successful business model to
international operations by expanding their network to whichever routes they can continue
operating with similar returns on investment (Goh and Uncle, 2003). However, no Thai low
cost airline has become a member under any of the three global alliances, Star Alliance,
Oneworld, and SkyTeam in 2015. Central for Aviation (2011) points out that it is lack of
compatibility of product (seamlessness) and IT connectivity, moreover, there are few
successful examples of strategic alliances among low cost airlines.
In Thailand, there is still no Thai low cost carrier becoming a member of worldwide
alliances so far. It is only one full service carrier, Thai airways, has been a member of star
alliance in 1997. Furthermore, from reviewed papers, there is no one mentioned the alliance
factor.
However, in 2010, low cost airline industry decided to cooperate together to create a low
cost airline alliance. Air Asia, low cost airline of Malaysian base, merged with Jet Star, low
cost airline of Australian base, to reduce cost by sharing expertise and procurement
procedures (Jetstarairway, 2010) like the corporation of JetBlue and Aer Lingus, the first low
cost airline alliance. Furthermore, in January 2016, U-Fly alliance also emerged, the first
forming of four Asian low cost airlines, presenting passengers with flexible and affordable
71
routes that are safe and secure (Uflyalliance, 2016). Sarker et al. (2012), mentions that
alliance and mergers by network carriers is an opportunity for low cost airline. Alliance with
networks is advantageous to low cost airline to attract international passengers travelling on
domestic routes and to increase market share for low cost airline.
Entertainment
Entertainment is the least important factor. When travelling by air transportation,
especially sitting during the long haul-flight, the entertainment of on board environment is
considered as one of the effective factor affect passenger’s purchasing behavior
(Sokolovskyy, 2012), as it can lessen the stress and nerves, as well as get leisurely. On the
contrary, in term of the low cost airline business model, costs are reduced with a “no-frills”
service, many free value-added in-flight services (such as catering, magazine, and
entertainment during the flight) which are routinely offered by full-service carriers, replaced
by optional paid-for them instead (Yeoh and Chan 2011; Vidović, 2013; Ratanakomut and
Kitcharoen, 2013). Fourie and Lubbe (2006) identify the factors that cause business travelers
choose between low-cost and full service South-African airlines, in-flight entertainment was
shown to be the least important factor. Buapiban (2015) also find that for low cost passenger
preferences, on board entertainment was explored in the least important.
Hamidi et al. (2013) claims that in-flight entertainment is the least effective factor
influencing the decision-making process of Iranian air travelers in their choice of airline for
domestic flights. On the other hands, Thai low cost passengers will give a preference to the
comfortable issue more than the entertainment issue. Thanasupsin et al. (2010) explain that
Thai passengers will concern much about the comfort and convenience than entertainment on
the flight. Furthermore, the flight time for passengers in short-medium haul is rather short,
three to six hours average, whereas the price is concerned as the most important factor
affecting Thai passengers for low cost airline selection, therefore, they doubtlessly are not
willing to spend money in entertainment for a short travelling time. Supposing they will pay
for on board service, the entertainment issue will certainly be as the last option for them to
concern (Buapiban, 2015).
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4.3 The Comparisons of Results with Those of Other
Papers
After analyzing the importance of factors, we will compare our results with those of
the reviewed papers in Table 4.3.
First, we use the method of Erdal (2009). The six point scale is given for each factor. If
the factor is the most important factor in the paper, the factor will score six points, the second
most important then the factor will score five points, the third important then the factor will
score four points, the fourth important then the factor will score three points, the fifth
important then the factor will score two points, and the sixth important then the factor will be
score one point, however, if the rank of factor is less than sixth, it will score zero point. The
calculation of sores and rank for the 19 factors are in Table 4.3
Table 4.3 Score and Rank for Factors in the Review Papers
Factor Priority in the Reviewed papers Score Rank
Brand Image The most important in: 1Qin (2012)
The second important in: 2Atalik and
Ozdemir (2015)
The third important in: 3Charoensettasilp
and Wu (2013)
The fifth important in: 5Buaphiban (2015)
17 10
Safety Record The most important in: 1Nejati et al.
(2008), 1Hamidi et al. (2013)
The third important in: 3Qin (2012), 3Ariffin et al. (2010)
The fourth important in: 4Charoensettasilp
and Wu (2013)
23 6
73
Factor Priority in the Reviewed papers Score Rank
Service Supply Chain The second important in: 2Yayla-Kullu and
Tansitpong (2013)
The third important in: 3Atalik and
Ozdemir (2015)
The fourth important in: 4Buaphiban
(2015)
The fifth important in: 5Nejati et al. (2008)
The sixth important in: 6Ariffin et al.
(2010)
15 12
Price The most important in: 1Ha (2010), 1Yeoh
and Chan (2011), 1Atalik and Ozdemir
(2015)
The second important in: 2Qin (2012), 2Sarker et al. (2012)
The third important in: 3Buaphiban (2015)
The fourth important in: 4Nochais (2014)
35 1
Alliance The third important in: 3Sarker et al.
(2012)
4 19
Promotion and
Advertising The most important in: 1Nochais (2014)
The second important in: 2Charoensettasilp
and Wu (2013), 2Atalik and Ozdemir
(2015)
The fourth important in: 4Qin (2012), 4Sarker et al. (2012), 4Yayla-Kullu and
Tansitpong (2013)
25 5
Reliability The most important in: 1Yayla-Kullu and
Tansitpong (2013), 1Wen and Chi (2013)
The third important in: 3Qin (2012), 3Ariffin et al. (2010), 3Hamidi et al. (2013)
The fourth important in: 4Charoensettasilp
and Wu (2013)
The sixth important in: 6Nejati et al.
(2008)
28 3
74
Factor Priority in the Reviewed papers Score Rank
Tangible The second important in: 2Nejati et al.
(2008), 2Saha (2009)
10 14
Empathy The third important in: 3Wen and Chi
(2013)
The fourth important in: 4Nejati et al.
(2008), 4Ariffin et al. (2010)
The sixth important in: 6Qin (2012),
6Hamidi et al. (2013)
12 13
Responsiveness The most important in: 1Yayla-Kullu and
Tansitpong (2013)
The second important in: 2Nochais (2014),
2Saha (2009)
The third important in: 3Qin (2012), 3Wen
and Chi (2013)
The fourth important in: 4Nejati et al.
(2008)
The sixth important in: 6Charoensettasilp
and Wu (2013)
28 3
Assurance The most important in: 1Ariffin et al.
(2010), 1Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong
(2013)
The second important in: 2Saha (2009),
2Wen and Chi (2013)
The sixth important in: 6Charoensettasilp
and Wu (2013)
23 6
Punctuality The most important in: 1Saha (2009)
The second important in: 2Yeoh and Chan
(2011)
The third important in: 3Atalik and
Ozdemir (2015), 3Sarker et al. (2012), 3Ha
(2010)
The fourth important in: 4Buaphiban
(2015), 4Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong
29 2
75
Factor Priority in the Reviewed papers Score Rank
(2013)
Flight Availability The most important in: 1Charoensettasilp
and Wu (2013), 1Saha (2009)
The third important in: 3Atalik and
Ozdemir (2015)
The fourth important in: 4Ha (2010)
The fifth important in: 5Sarker et al.
(2012), 5Ariffin et al. (2010)
23 6
Flight Compensation The third important in: 3Wen and Chi
(2013)
The fourth important in: 4Hamidi et al.
(2013)
The fifth important in: 5Ha (2010)
9 15
Flight Announcement The second important in: 2Hamidi et al.
(2013)
The third important in: 3Ariffin et al.
(2010)
9 15
Cleanliness The third important in: 3Yeoh and Chan
(2011), 3Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong
(2013)
8 17
Comfort The second important in: 2Ariffin et al.
(2010)
The third important in: 3Saha (2009),
3Yayla-Kullu and Tansitpong (2013)
The fourth important in: 4Yeoh and Chan
(2011), 4Buaphiban (2015), 4Atalik and
Ozdemir (2015)
22 9
Entertainment The third important in: 3Yayla-Kullu and
Tansitpong (2013)
The fourth important in: 4Buaphiban
(2015)
7 18
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Factor Priority in the Reviewed papers Score Rank
Facilities The third important in: 3Saha (2009)
The fourth important in: 4Yayla-Kullu and
Tansitpong (2013), 4Atalik and Ozdemir
(2015)
The fifth important in: 5Qin (2012), 5Nochais (2014), 5Hamidi et al. (2013)
16 11
According to Table 4.3, we find that in the reviewed papers the six most important
factors are price (score = 35), punctuality (score = 29), reliability and responsiveness (the
same score = 28), followed by promotion (score = 25), as well as, the three factors of safety,
flight availability, and assurance (the same score = 23), and comfort (score = 22). Moreover,
two least important factors are entertainment (score = 7) and alliance (score = 4).
Table 4.4 The Results of Comparison with Those of Other Papers
The six most important factors The two least important factors
Our Study Price, Punctuality, Safety Record,
Reliability, Responsiveness, Flight
Availability
Alliance, Entertainment
Other Studies Price, Punctuality, Reliability
*(Responsiveness), Promotion and
Advertising, Safety Record
**(Flight Availability, Assurance)
Entertainment, Alliance
* Reliability and Responsiveness have the same score.
**Safety Record, Flight availability, and Assurance have the same score.
The above data indicates that price and punctuality are regarded as the two most
important factors in our research that affect Thai passengers to select low cost airlines, as
well as, in the reviewed papers. Yeoh and Chan (2011) also support that price is the most
significant influential factor to purchase intention of low cost airline. Low cost airline
passengers are much concerned with low price in order to save money because the passengers
have experienced that service quality of low cost airline is unpredictable in every flight of
journeys, and this results in that the on time performance is different too, therefore,
punctuality is not so much important as price. Atalik and Ozdemir (2015) show that price
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overcomes punctuality that affecting the purchase decision of domestic low cost airlines.
Saker et al. (2012) support that low and competitive pricing is the most important factor
followed by on time performance that low cost airlines could retain their customers and
ensure repeat purchase intention. Ha (2010) also claims that price is more important than no-
delay for consumer’s choice in no-frill airline.
The third importance factor under this research is safety record while reviewed papers
rank safety record as the fifth important factor but give much value to reliability and
responsiveness. Safety record is concerned as the third most important factor for Thai
passengers to select low cost airlines. From the records of accidents occurred in Thailand,
especially, in road traffic, WHO (World Health Organization, 2014) exposes that Thailand
was ranked at the number two of road fatalities in the world, with 44 road deaths per 100,000
people. Fatalities of road accidents made up 5.1% of Thailand’s overall deaths. Therefore, the
high number of fatality related to road transportation accidents in Thailand may cause Thai
passengers to pay more attentions to the safety record of air transportation. Besides, In
Thailand, many companies fail to create the effective safety culture (Vongvitayapirom,
2013). However, Thai people consider that, to reduce the rate of accidents and improve safety
performance, safety culture must be concerned.
Moreover, Safety record in our study is the factor under airline corporate dimension,
which is regarded as the most important dimension affecting Thai passengers to select low
cost airline. In other words, Thai passengers consider that safety record, a reflection of airline
corporate, is more important than reliability and responsiveness, a reflection of service
quality. Graham and Bansal (2007) indicate that safety record is one of the major components
of airline reputation. Pipatchaisiri (2012) describes that the airline accidents cause more
damage than any other transportation losses. As well as, Buapiban (2015) supports that non-
safety of airline is one of the inhibiting factors for Thai passengers in choice of airline since
passengers may perceive the safety standard of LCA to be less ideal than full service airline.
Therefore, un-safety can reduce the intention to select low cost airline (Chang and Hung,
2013). Hamidi et al. (2013) also claim that any change in flight safety, especially in high-
competition routes, will result in changes in the travelers' purchase behavior and a very likely
change of airline for domestic flights.
Reliability and responsiveness provided by airline staffs are ranked the third (with the
same score) in the reviewed papers, while, in our study, they are ranked in the fourth and fifth
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factors, respectively. According to Thai people’s characteristics, most Thai people are more
tolerant than American people since Thais enjoy “Jai yen” or “cool heart” in their lifestyle, it
means they are likely to accept most things with grace and calm (Goodman, 2004). However,
most American people are dynamic, energetic, impatient, and restless (Picon and Ponte,
2003). This can be implied that, Thai people are less promptly than people of other countries
(Kromadit, 2008). Most Thai people think themselves as Thai Buddhists. Japanese and the
other culture in South East Asian are more energetic, and Thai culture is less active and more
easygoing (Burnard and Gill, 2009). Therefore, Thai people consider reliability and
responsiveness to be less important.
In fact, the reliability and responsiveness is not much different in comparison. It might
be that people perceive reliability and responsiveness are the two important factors
influencing the consumer’s expectation of the service provider in the long term relationship
(Furrer et al., 2000). Moreover, service quality is concerned as the most crucial point that
passengers accept low cost airlines and ensure repeat business. Sarker (2012) explains that
the most important thing that passengers require low cost airline to provide is good customer
service through a broad of functions.
However, Thai passengers are more concerned with safety record than reliability and
responsiveness of service quality. Suhartanto and Noor (2012) claims that improving the
service quality would let low cost airline be able to provide better airline safety.
Charoensettasilp and Wu (2013) support that safety record of airline is much necessary than
friendliness and accuracy performed by airline staffs for Thai passengers to select low cost
airline.
The fourth and fifth important factors in our study are reliability and responsiveness, but
the reviewed papers give much value to them and rank them as the third, while rank
promotion and advertising factor as the fifth. However, in our study promotion and
advertising are ranked as the tenth. In fact, Indonesians are more concerned on price in their
purchasing decision (Kurabayashi et al., 2013). Therefore, Air Asia releases more frequency
of discount promotion to Indonesia Air Asia than Thai Air Asia (Airasia, 2013). Moreover, in
term of the consumer behavior, Thai are less preferred on promotion than Vietnamese,
Malaysian, and Taiwanese (Neilsan, 2011).
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Moreover, Thai passengers consider that the public relation of Thai low cost airline is
relatively poor. From the data of DCA (Department of Civil Aviation, Thailand, 2015)
indicates that Thai passengers always complain for problems when booking the ticket during
the sale promotion period. Moreover, by regulation, all of Thai low cost carriers are not
allowed to sell ticket fare too low in pricing promotion, while foreign low cost carriers
launching a lot of heavy low price promotion assaults on Thai low cost airline market (MOT,
Ministry of Transport in Thailand, 2015). Therefore, this might result in Thai low cost
carriers are weaker in the frequency of promotion campaigns, the advertising and public
relation channels, especially, on social media, as well as, the attractive quality of promotion
and advertising distributed to passengers (Sokolovskyy, 2012).
It is customary for the low cost airline to use ticket promotion to induce passenger
demand and motivate the sales (Lim and Mohayidin, 2011). Since price is the most important
factor influencing Thai passengers when selecting low cost airline in our study, Thai
passengers always make a buying decision on airfare promotion to obtain the low price ticket
with less concern with other important factors (Thanasupsin et al., 2010). Chan (2014) claims
that price promotion alone, is not an effective competitive strategy to increase low cost
passenger purchases intention. Usually, low cost airline business model is away from
frequent flyer program (FFP), and low cost airline rarely offers FFP despite it has been a very
successful way to build brand loyalty of passengers for full service airline (Nissenberg, 1994;
Boer and Browning, 2013). Sripromnil (2008) suggests that the changeable flight schedules
with no charge of fees is an alternative in sale promotion that influencing final decision of
Thai passengers. Sarker et al. (2012) suggest that innovative promotion, offering for student
passengers segment is interesting since this type of group is more likely to be attracted owing
to their budget limit. In term of the advertising, Nochais (2014) also claims that low cost
airline should use a lot of advertising channels to communicate with passengers, and it should
promote the image of country and the scenic beauty to attract more tourists.
The flight availability is the sixth important factor in our paper and other studies. Most
Thai people attempt to avoid high uncertainty. According to Hofstede (1983), when people
feel threatened by uncertain and ambiguity, they will try to create security and avoid risk
taking. Monthienvichienchai et al. (2002) state that this cultural behavior could enforce
conformity. Another prominent illustration has been provided by Roongrengsuke and
Chansuthus (1998). They noted that, when there was an absence of a specific job description,
80
individuals in Thai organizations will feel anxious and uncertain. Thus, it can be concluded
that most members of Thai organization will try to avoid situations that are high in
uncertainty, especially during an organizational change (Lertdechdecha, 2008).
As for assurance, although the other papers rank assurance as sixth important factor
influencing the selection of low cost airline, but Thai passengers are less concerned in
assurance. It might be explained by the distinction of Thai culture that basically Thais are
collectivistic people who engage in the amicability relationship, and associate with the
hierarchical roles, in term of dependence on gender, and family background (Mujtaba, 2008).
Therefore, Thai people usually are not necessary to learn a lot of ability, since the seniority
system of society leads to create only one way communication that all of the thoughts depend
on higher commanders. Besides, this system is not able to bring about the knowledge sharing,
exchange any opinion, and new fresh idea in the organization (Mongkolchai Wiriyapinit,
2010). It is apparently seen in the data of Federation of Thai industry (2002), which claims
that Thai people are less in seeking for the knowledge and skills to improve their talents
guaranteeing the works success, because traditionally they will follow the orders from upper
level managers. On the other hand, in American, they are associated with egalitarian
relationships and flexibility in roles (e.g., upward mobility), and they emphasize more on the
ability to assure their performance for their success (Gorodnichenko and Roland, 2011).
Alliance and entertainment are ranked as the second least and least important factors in
this study, respectively; moreover, in the reviewed papers, entertainment is ranked as the
second least important while alliance is the least important factor. The reason maybe that so
far, there is no low cost airlines join the global alliance (Lopez, 2013). Moreover, in recent
years, tourism industry in Thailand has become more important, it is not only attracts more
foreigners to take a flight to Thailand, but Thai people also are gradually taking domestic
journey. From the data of TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) and NSO (National
Statistical Office of Thailand) (2015), indicate that the number of Thai people travelling in
Thailand since 2010 to 2014 has increased every year from 50.1% to 64.9%, and this
situation might cause Thai passengers are less concerned on the airline alliance since it is not
necessary to use the strategy of alliance to expand domestic flights to international flights.
The data from the Office of the Ombudsman Thailand (2014) indicate although Thai people
like social harmony, many conflicts have happened in Thai Society recently. Moreover, the
loose social structure makes Thai people be too individualistic, and they do not like to work
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in group. From the child moment, Thai people are independent, individual, not satisfied with
force, and without discipline, this situation might influence them in the term of cooperation
(Embree, 1950; Phillips, 1967). However, the merging within low cost airline alliance seems
to be in the good trend, JetBlue and Aer Lingus, form the first low cost airline alliance, and
recently the forming of four low cost airlines in Asian, U-Fly alliance. Goh and Uncle (2003)
indicate that the benefits for passengers from airline alliance are cheaper pricing, more route
options in case of itinerary changing, transferable priority status, extended lounge access, and
participating in the alliance’s Frequent Flyer Program (FFP). Therefore, alliance might
encourage Thai passengers gradually considering about the importance of alliance which
serving the values of their individual needs.
The least important factor for Thai passengers is entertainment. Thai passengers are less
concerned on entertainment which may be accounted by the shorter leisure time of Thai
people. Saksiriruthai (2013) describes that the average time per day spent for entertainment
for Thai people is relatively short, which is about 1 hour a day, comparing with the data from
the Bureau of Labor Statistics (American Time Use Survey, 2014) is about 5 hours per day.
Moreover, the amusement activities that Thai people prefer are related to the personal care,
developing health, and physical appearance, especially in the activities of sleeping, personal
hygiene and health, than consuming the mass media. Therefore, Thai passengers may feel
that it is not necessary to spend time on the on-board entertainment. Nejati et al. (2008) also
support that through the eyes of Iran passengers the comfortable chairs with sufficient space
for sitting, and clean rest-rooms in the airplanes are more important than providing up-to-date
newspapers, magazines, and video films during the flight.
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Chapter 5 Conclusions
5.1 The Summary of Results
The global airline industry has grown rapidly in recent years. Moreover, much of this
growth could be attributed to the growth in low cost airline business model. The data from
IATA shows that low cost airline business gained almost 25% of the worldwide market in
2014. Low cost airline will unceasingly continue to grow around the world so as to satisfy the
strong demand on diverse air transportation (Ko, 2016). The airlines of Asia, especially the
countries in Southeast Asia, are some of the first in the region to employ the low cost airline
business. The data from Central Aviation showed that the total number of low cost fleet in
Southeast Asia is over 600 aircrafts in 2015, and it has grown by over 50% since the
beginning of 2013, when it consisted of about 400 aircrafts. In addition, nowadays,
Thailand’s domestic airline market has become a major battleground for Southeast Asia’s
leading low cost airlines, and Thailand’s domestic low cost airline sector recorded passenger
growth of over 30% in 2014 (CAPA, Center for Aviation, 2015).
Therefore, this intense competition exists not only within the full service airline
business sector, which they have to establish their own subsidiary low cost airlines, but also
within the low cost airline business sector. Price is regarded as the most important strategy
that it is able to neutralize the dominance of competitors, so as to maintain the market share
against the rivals. However, low cost airlines may not make profits if the market is saturated
with too many low cost airlines competing on the basis of price (Kim and Lee, 2010). Thus, it
is necessary for the airlines to find the other effective strategies to gain the competitive
advantages beyond the price war.
The objective of this research is to investigate the key factors affecting Thai
passengers to select low cost airlines, and we hope the results could serve as a guideline for
the local low cost airline managers in Thailand to meet passenger’s satisfactions. Thus, Thai
low cost airline managers are able to develop effective marketing plans to compete with full
service airline, as well as, increase the profits of their companies eventually. Therefore, it is
important for Thai low cost carriers to understand what key factors could affect passenger’s
decision to maintain their dominant positions in Thailand airline industry.
83
The method of this study is Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology. It is one
of the effective multi criteria decision making (MCDM) methods. After defining the
dimensions and factors affecting Thai passengers to select low cost airlines from reviewed
literatures, we designed questionnaires, and distributed the questionnaire to more than 30
Thai low cost airline passengers, then AHP was applied to analyze the questionnaire for
obtaining the rank of dimensions and factors.
From the analysis of data in Chapter 4, we find that the rank of dimensions is as
follow: airline corporate, service quality, flight management, and airline aircraft. As well as,
we find that the rank of 19 factors is price, punctuality, safety record, reliability,
responsiveness, comfort, cleanliness, brand image, promotion and advertising, empathy,
flight announcement, service supply chain, tangible, assurance, facilities, flight
compensation, alliance, and entertainment, respectively. Then, we compare our results with
other papers. The results of comparison are in Table 4.4.
5.2 Suggestions for Related Organizations
Suggestions for Thai Low Cost Airlines
Because of the rapid growth and intense competition of low cost airlines in Thailand,
Thai low cost airlines need to develop themselves so as to gain the competitive advantage and
be the first choice of low cost airlines for passengers.
Basing on the results of this study, we propose the following suggestions for Thai low
cost airlines:
1. Price
Thai low cost airlines should concentrate on attractive pricing strategy such as, the
first come with lowest price, one price strategy, and period of discounted, ladder-like manner
price that many successful Thai low cost airlines have thoroughly presented (Anuchatanon et
al., 2013).
Focus on targeted groups, for example, offering lower price ticket for women since in
our study women are the main travelling group of air transportation. As well as, passengers in
the government sector, they are concerned as the most frequently fliers. Besides, the student
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group, who should be not overlooked because they do not only book the trips for studying,
but also go back home to visit family each year. Moreover, in term of “flash-packer” group,
the hi-technology and socially connected travelers, is becoming a new target of the travelling
market, who are concerned as a growing segment of the global travel industry (ITB, 2014).
Therefore, this targeted group may give a change for Thai low cost airlines to gain more
market share.
In addition, according to the data from TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) and
NSO (National Statistical Office of Thailand, 2015) indicate that Thai people like to make a
domestic journey and this allows Thai low cost airlines to make a price strategy which let
Thai travelers control their expenditure to meet their demands. The cost of travelling should
be approximately 2,600 THB for one time per person. For example, offer special price on the
routes that enable them to reach beautiful tourist destinations in Thailand.
Aside from local Thai citizens, foreigners, particularly, in East Asia, such as Chinese,
Malaysian, and Korean people like to have a trip to Thailand as well (MOTS, 2015).
Therefore, the concept of airline alliance may bring benefits to Thai low cost airlines, since
the alliance would increase competition advantages in the international market by allowing
the lower price, and providing the variety of routes. However, Thai low cost airlines should
not use overcharging strategy that exploits the passengers which will causes passengers
dissatisfaction in the long run (Pothasin et al., 2010).
2. Punctuality
Thai low cost airlines need to increase the number of auxiliary aircrafts, since
unscheduled maintenance reduces aircraft availability rates, and results in affecting the
punctuality performance of airline. It is important to deploy them cautiously and not in a
sweeping fashion. Avoid the tendency to simply use them as a buffer for maintenance
requirements.
To solve the delayed flight caused by traffic congestion requires the airlines explore
new ways to share the air-space, co-location, either in concerted actions with other airlines,
air traffic providers, ATC, as well as airport operators who are responsible for slot allocation.
Slot allocation is the management on scheduled times of arrival or departure, or the aircraft
movement, on a specific date at an airport for delay sensitive traffic support (Allen and
Hamilton, 2001; ICAO, Vidhyashankar et al., 2005) Solve the delayed flights is important,
85
especially, between the coordinated airports, for example, Suvarnabhumi International
Airport and Don Mueang International Airport, which are the two most busiest airports in
Thailand (IATA, 2016).
Solving the schedule perturbations problem from the perspective of minimizing
customer dissatisfaction is a good opportunity for Thai low cost airlines to improve on time
performance. Schedule perturbation management is designed for schedule development,
especially caused by the ground delay problem (Luo and Yu, 1998). Schaefer and Nemhauser
(2006) indicate that the crew schedule with the perturbed flight timetable can have a
noticeable punctuality improvement than the original flight timetable. Schedule perturbation
management does not only enhance the on-time percentage that is able to develop the
passenger’s satisfaction, but also improve the operational cost, as well as, reduce the loss of
profit in rescheduling in competitive airline markets (Yan and Yang, 1996).
3. Safety Record
Low cost airlines try to let aircrafts fly more frequently so as to maximize the
utilization of aircraft. However, this kind of operation might cause aircrafts easily
weatherworn and lead to aircraft varying load superimposed on a constant load, getting worse
from metal fatigue, result in aircraft structural damage eventually (Bhat and Patibandla,
2011).
The data from the Civil Aviation Authority indicate that global jet accident rate is
decreasing, that in 2014 was 0.23, which is less than the five-year rate (2009-2013) of 0.58
hull loss accidents per million flights. Moreover, taking airline transportation is the most
safety transportation compared to other kinds of transportation since that the fatality rate per
billion kilometers travelled by plane is 0.003 compared to 0.27 by rail and 2.57 by car.
Registering and strictly conforming to the global safety standard organization is
important, such as take part in IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), IATA Standard
Safety Assessment (ISSA), IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations (ISAGO), and Global
Aviation Data Management (GADM), these international organizations will monitor whether
airlines are operating to the highest global standards for safety.
Most controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents happen in the approaching and
landing phase and are associated with the problem of imprecise approaches. The number of
86
CFIT could be reduced by development and enhancement of the training materials guarding
against runway excursion accidents.
In addition, Thai low cost airlines must be concerned with safety issue of outsourced
maintenance. Before the deregulation of air transportation, airlines conducted their
maintenance in-house. After the deregulation, the outsourced maintenance became more
prevalent (McFadden and Worrells, 2012). Outsourced maintenance has been a tool that air
carriers have used in recent years to reduce costs, improve efficiencies, and hopefully
increase profitability (Rutner and Brown, 1999). Especially, in the low cost airline business,
an airline with a relatively small fleet may not have the capital or desire, to establish a multi-
level maintenance program. However, poor outsourced maintenance might cause ValuJet 592
crashed in 1996 (Gerber and Jensen, 2007). Therefore, Thai low cost airlines should pay
much attention on the service quality of outsourced maintenance.
Besides, Thai low cost airline should eliminate the chance of engine failure by
introduction digital instrument “glass cockpit”, and “fly-by-wire” technology, which could
lead to safety improvements. As well as, improvements in sensors, navigation equipment, and
air traffic control technology, such as anti-collision control systems, could play an important
role on safety issue.
Pilots not understanding the technical systems in the modern airplanes, and
inadequate training appear more times in accident investigation reports. It seems that pilots
with inadequate airmanship skills will heavily rely on the autopilot system; it also seems that
crews are not trained to ensure that FMS (Flight Management System) should be right before
executing them. Therefore, the educated pilots and crews with their knowledge and skills
promptly prepare for emergency situations is necessary and this can limit the influence of
human errors on flight safety (Soekkha, 1997).
4. Reliability
Thai low cost airlines should demonstrate the commitment to service reliability to all
airline employees, by frequent discussion with staffs about reliability, important of striving
for zero service error, and every aspects related to service reliability.
Thai low cost airline should establish comprehensive SOP, the Standard Operating
Procedure, in training programs and in manuals provided to all airline staffs in order to create
87
consistency and reliability service (FAA, 2000). Moreover, SOP is also able to ensure that
aircraft is operated in the most safe, efficient, and on-time manner (Giles, 2013).
Moreover, low cost airline should continuously reevaluate service quality and use
feedbacks from employees to improve service quality. Low cost airline should have a system
in place for systemically capturing and analyzing passenger complaints about the service
(Berry and Parasuraman, 1992).
Thai low cost airlines should monitor individual employee service behavior and use
the results in coaching, training, performance evaluation, recognition and rewards; identify
systemic strengths and weaknesses in customer service. As well as, track employee’s morale
and attitudes.
Thai low cost airlines should motivate, and encourage the aim of zero service error,
especially in the process of recruiting to guarantee that new staffs are competent and
committed to service excellence.
Thai low cost airlines should encourage, facilitate, and require teamwork and
communication across functional units. For example, establish passenger-focused inter-
functional teams in charge of ensuring the reliable service, foster inter-functional cohesion by
implementing formal communication system, and provide programs to cross train employees
to help them appreciate one another’s job (Berry and Parasuraman, 1992).
5. Responsiveness
Employee must be competent and possess good attitudes to respond to customers,
with problem-solving skill, be creative and able to bring value to the organization of airline
(Charoensettasilp and Wu, 2013).
Thai low cost airlines should educate employees on how to deal with angry customers
and how to help customers solve service problems quickly. In some cases, they need access
to information systems that will tell them more about the passengers, the situation causing the
problem, and possible solutions (Leonard et al., 1994). As well as, low cost airline should
stimulate staffs to respond customer complaints quickly and personally because quick
response demonstrates that the customer's concern is the company's concern. For example,
offer the available customer call center for providing advices 24-hours.
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Thai low cost airline should provide sufficient number of backup staffs when key
airline staffs are absent (Alberta, 2012). As well as, provide effective cross training staffs,
who are able to do more than one task, in order to increase the responsiveness to demand
variability and to satisfy Thai passengers with high service quality (Qin and Nembhard, 2005;
Büke et al., 2015).
Besides, Thai low cost airlines should know what passengers really want and whether
these meet their needs or not (Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons, 2006; Sasser et al., 1978;
Wakefield & Blodgett, 1999), so that low cost airlines can train employees to respond
appropriately.
Teamwork cohesion refers to the teamwork attitude and cooperation in cross-
departments and the acceptance of different opinions. Management support service
responsiveness in internal environment and team work can enhance airline employee
cohesion, thus improve passenger service (Deeter-Schmelz and Kennedy, 2003).
6. Flight Availability
Thai low cost airlines should take a consideration on forming airline alliance that it
may benefit for flight availability, because airline alliance is able to overcome restrictions
over routes by providing a greater network access, increase the flight frequency by offering
wider routes and more itinerary choices to passengers than non-alliance airlines of similar
size (IATA, 2011). Moreover, it may provide the seamless travel that passengers want when
them transferring from one airline to another (Bissessur and Alamdari 1998) since the
alliance offers extensive codeshare flight options for its consumers, promising quick
transfers, and few stopovers. Besides, if the passengers decide to change flight plans at the
last moment, they have the alternative of transferring to a variety of routes, airlines, and
flexible flight schedules of the alliance network (Goh and Uncle, 2003).
To minimize the risk of seat unavailability, especially during the high seasons and the
promotional periods that the airline tickets will be sold out immediately (Charoensettasilp &
Wu, 2013), by increasing the number of fleet is concerned as one of the choices to
sufficiently support such a huge number of passengers for Thai low cost airlines. According
to the data from CAPA, 2014, indicates that low cost carriers in Asia-Pacific region operating
a combined fleet nearly 1,000 aircrafts, besides, it also orders over 1,500 aircrafts in place. In
addition, boosting aircraft capacity could enhance the seat capacity through adding seats on
89
existing jets while removing some galley, lavatory and trim legroom, and could balance or
cut down the additional expenditures (Carey and Nicas, 2015).
Thai low cost airlines should purchase the airport slot from slot holders, and this is
able to improve the network and flight schedules, especially the increasing of flight frequency
on existing routes (Babic and Kalic, 2011). From Council Regulation No 95/93, slot is
defined as a permission to use the full range of airport infrastructure necessary to operate an
air service at a coordinated airport on a specific date and time for the purpose of landing or
take-off as allocated by a coordinator at the airport. Therefore, the airline that possesses slot
will have the right to operate at that airport at that time (Babic and Kalic, 2011). In the other
word, it can explained why the airport in which regard as the slot constrained on the route,
results in a drop of nearly one flight per day compared to routes without constrained airports
(Pai, 2010).
Presenting the long-haul might be a way to improve the flight availability, especially
in term of the extending of destinations for the longer routes (Vermeij, 2014). From the data
of Air Travel Intelligence (2015) show that the full service airlines gain 97% of scheduled
departing seats on long-haul flights during June 2014 to June 2015, while low cost airline
accounting for the remaining 3%. Moreover, full service airlines rule the 10 busiest long-haul
routes in the world, while low cost airline only compete on 4 of the 10 routes, particularly, if
the route is characterized by a large number of business travelers and frequent flyers who are
accustomed to a certain level of service (Perry and Williams, 2015). Long haul low cost
airlines could not only select the core prolonged distance, but also have advantages to offer a
cheaper airfare, more fuel-efficient aircraft, and higher density seating (Morrell, 2008).
Furthermore, long haul low cost airlines are able to benefit for the connecting passengers who
prevail in the short-haul and long haul point to point markets (Shaw, 2011). As a result of the
combined application of low cost airline business model with long routes, it is no interlining
or transfer for the long distance, but directly to the destination from point to point operation,
instead of going through a central hub of the Hub-and-spoke (HS), multi-hub-and-spoke
(MHS) from full service airline network configuration (Yan, Fu & Oum, 2008; Lordan,
2013).
Thai low cost airlines should take a notice on the aircraft type selection, in particular,
the aircraft providing noise reduction technology (Dickson, 2014). Because some airports
restrict the night flights, or curfew, because of the rules imposed by some states on the
90
aircraft operators that prohibit the aircraft taking off and/or landing during the specific period
of time to reduce the aircraft noise problem (ICAO, 2013). Besides, the night flight restriction
may apply to all aircrafts or only a certain aircraft according to their noise performance.
In addition, Thai low cost airlines should have good relation with regional carrier’s
owners. Forbes and Lederman (2005) shows that the major airlines that own regional carriers
may have a greater ability to dictate flight schedules and aircraft usage than carriers that rely
on contract partners. This effect would suggest that major ownership of a regional carrier
would allow greater flight frequency and the use of smaller planes (Pai, 2010).
Suggestions for Thai Government
The deregulation and liberalization of airlines industry in ASEAN has stimulated the
growth in airline industry recently. Moreover, the rapid growth was driven by an existence of
low cost airline, and low cost airline accounts for more than a half of the short-haul market in
Southeast Asia (Damuri and Anas, 2005).
Therefore, Thai government should be prompt to assist low cost airlines, since the
number of low cost airline passengers in Thailand grows very fast, both in the domestic and
international travel (Buaphiban, 2015). Basing on the results of this study, we propose the
following suggestions for Thai government.
1. Thai government should alleviate the fee for airport parking, which is considered as
the highest fee in Southeast Asia area (Karivate, 2003). As well as, Thai government stop
increasing the taxes or charges of low cost airlines for improving the competitiveness in
transport and tourism (IATA, 2016).
2. Thai government should encourage the BOI (Board of Investment of Thailand), which
has sufficient fund, to subsidize low cost airline business segment for the reliable
maintenance operations. As well as authorize the Ministry of Finance of Thailand, in order to
provide budgets backing up the extended constructions of transportation direct to airports,
since the aviation industry is critical to Thailand’s economic success (IATA, 2016). For
example, expand the railway system connecting airports, particularly, a railway connecting
Don Mueang International Airport.
91
3. Thai government should actively promote the regional tourism industry so as to attract
domestic and the international tourists. Especially, attract the group of flash-packer travelers,
which is a new market and regarded as a growing segment of the global travel industry.
Tourism industry is a major industry in Thailand; moreover, airline sector in Thailand is
concern as the backbone of tourism sector (TRIS, 2014).
4. Thai government should improve on time performance of low cost airlines.
Particularly, improve the management of service supply chain in airports to keep abreast of
short turnaround time, by increasing the number of connecting gates and simultaneously
improving the allocation of gates, increasing number of boarding bridges, shuttle bus, and
transfer bus service from bay to deliver passengers to the airplane, besides, expanding the
space of parking lots, increasing the number of baggage claiming belts, allocating the
location of check-in counters efficiently, improving the condition of check-in counters and
feeding belts, slots, as well as, better congestion management (Klamsaengsai and
Choibamroong, 2015).
5. Thai government should develop the ATC, upgrade the air traffic automatically
control system and establish the Air Traffic Network Management Centre, with the aim of
improving operational efficiency in airspace management, air traffic control and capacity
control (HKTDC, Hong Kong Trade Development Council, 2015).
6. Thai government must address the importance of international safety standard under
the evaluation of ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and US FAA (Federal
Aviation Administration), so as to push Thai low cost airline to meet the world class safety
standard. Moreover, by this way Thai government is able to promote the good image of Thai
low cost airlines.
7. Thai government should coordinate with foreign organizations, as it will benefit for,
especially, in term of the expansion of the airport and its related facilities. Foreign
construction and aviation services providers may look after to collaborate with Thai airports
and airlines in the supply of related engineering and aviation technologies, equipment, and
technical advice to upgrade the nationwide air traffic management system (HKTDC, 2015).
8. Thai government should implement plans for constrained airports to build new
infrastructures such as new terminals in order to increase capacity of constrained airports for
dealing with a soaring passenger circulation, especially in Don Mueang International Airport
92
which has become the world's largest low cost airline’s airport. Furthermore, plan to build
new airports. Regulatory barriers to airport expansion should be loosened to encourage more
low cost airline players in the airline industry (Karivate, 2003). Besides, Thai government
should motivate airports to provide unconstrained slots because routes on which airports are
slot constrained and with more competing airports nearby having lower flight frequency (Pai,
2010).
9. Thai government should encourage Thai low cost airlines to enter into alliance with
each other as this would increase competitiveness of Thai low cost airlines in the
international area beyond domestic front (Sarker et al., 2012).
5.3 Research Limits and Future Development
Research Limits
The methodology in this research is AHP, a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM)
method that can assist decision-makers who encounter with a complex problem with multiple
conflicting and subjective criteria (Ishizaka and Labib, 2009). However, AHP also have
some limitations such as the assumption of independence between criteria and alternatives, if
the assumption is violated, it can lead to inconsistencies between judgments and ranking
criteria, and is susceptible of rank reversal, as well as, the method cannot reflect the fuzzy of
opinions. Therefore, future study should solve the weakness of the conventional AHP.
Future Development
We suggest ANP, MAHP, and FAHP could be applied to improve our research.
ANP (Analytical Network Process) approach is developed to take the
interdependencies between factors into consideration. However ANP is more concerned with
network structure that allows for dependence. There is a capacity to prioritize groups or
clusters of elements which are interdependence. Thus, ANP is always applied to solve the
problem of dependence among alternative or criteria of AHP (Chan and Wang, 2013).
The derivable rankings of alternatives from traditional AHP cannot be tested for
statistical significance and it shorts of a systematic method that addresses managerial/soft
aspects. To overcome the above limitations, the modified analytic hierarchy process
93
(MAHP), which incorporates the probabilistic distributions to include uncertainty in the
judgments. The final rankings are analyzed for rank reversal using analysis of variance, and
managerial aspects are introduced systematically (Banuelas and Antony, 2004).
The fuzziness and vagueness are general characteristics in decision making problems,
moreover, the conventional AHP method may not completely reflect a pattern of people
thinking because the decision makers regularly have more confident to give interval
judgments rather than revealing their judgments in the form of single numeric values, so
fuzzy modification of AHP, FAHP, is able to take a people’s assessment of vagueness when
complicated multi-attribute decision making problems are concerned (Erensal et al., 2006).
94
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Yan, J., Fu, X., & Oum, T. (2008). Exploring network effects of point-to- point
networks: An investigation of the spatial entry patterns of Southwest Airlines (Working Paper
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Retrieved 22 March, 2016, from
http://www.airasia.com/hk/en/latest-news/news-typhon-usagi.page
AirAsia Big. (2015). Why be a AirAsia BIG member. Retrieved 26 March, 2016, from
http://www.airasiabig.com/global/en/?page=whyjoin
108
Cail, S. (2016). Inflight passenger announcements. Retrieved 8 April, 2016, from
https://www.scribd.com/doc/313688767/Announcements-for-Flight-Attendatns
Carey, S., & Nicas, J. (2015). Airlines’ new normal: more seats, fewer flights.
Retrieved 22 March, 2016, from
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-normal-for-airlines-more-seats-fewer-trips-1435874679
Cha. (2013). Don't laugh: Vanilla Air, Peach and other budget airlines mean business.
Retrieved 15 April, 2016, from
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/01/travel/asia-low-cost-carriers/
Department of Civil Aviation. (2008). Results Based Management (RBM).
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IATA. (2012). IATA global passenger survey highlights. Retrieved 26 March, 2016, from
https://www.iata.org/whatwedo/passenger/gps/Documents/Highlights%202015-Global-
Passenger-Survey-Final.pdf
Jetstar. (2010). Jetstar and AirAsia form world first alliance. Retrieved 15 April, 2016, from
http://www.jetstar.com/~/_media/fbfd5fe2621e43bd981b4386dad855cb.pdf
Kromadit, V. (2008). Be a better man. Retrieved 15 April, 2016, from
http://www.vikrom.net/
Neilsan. (2011). Global convenience symposium growing demand, changing structures.
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%20webinars/Convenience%20Symposium-SESSION1_PETER%20GALE_sept14.pdf
Nok Air. (2015). About us: Nok fanclub. Retrieved 26 March, 2016, from
http://www.nokfanclub.com/aspx/nokfan.aspx
Skytrax. (2015). Cabin cleanliness is a competitive differentiator for airlines.
Retrieved 8 April, 2016, from
http://www.airlinequality.com/news/airline-cabin-cleanliness/
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alliance four low-fare airlines celebrate with HKD/CNY118 fares.
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PowerPoint slides and Newspapers
Anuchatanon, C., Noisuwan, C., Burabhatthamrongkul, R., Boonraksa, V., Amornsakdakul,
W., & Sornsuwan, S. Nokair strategy. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
http://www.slideshare.net/Raiinforest/nokair-strategy
Dickson, N. (2014). Aircraft noise technology and international noise standards [Power
Point slides]. Retrieved from
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management in Thailand. Prachachat, p. 34-36.
Appendices
109
Questionnaire: Key Factors Affecting Thai Passengers to Select Low Cost Airline
(LCA)
This is an academic questionnaire for the master thesis of Global Business Program,
Soochow University, Taiwan, the Republic of China (ROC). The purpose of this study is to
find and comprehend the important factors that affect passengers in LCA selection, in order
to be a beneficial guideline serving for airline industry in Thailand. However, all of surveyed
data that you provided are only used for the purpose of this study, as well as they will
certainly not be exposed to public.
Please feel free to answer these surveyed questions. If you have any suspicious topics
or problems during the survey, please do not hesitate to contact us directly.
Sincerely,
Thank you for your cooperation
Advisor: Chih-Ming Lee, Ph.D.
Department of Business Administration
Researcher: MS. Mananya Sriworrarat
Department of Global Business Program
SUBJECT I: A Hierarchical Framework of Key Factors Affecting Thai Passengers to Select
LCA
113
SUBJECT II: The definitions of dimensions and factors
Dimension Factor Definition of factors
A1. Airline Corporate B1. Brand image The objective of the brand image is to gain a competitive advantage which enable to lead
passenger trust to select the brand.
B2. Safety record Safety records refer to all of condition related, weather conditions, flight crashes, terrorism,
and even pilots own mistakes been reported throughout the years.
B3. Service supply
chain
Service supply chain include how passengers are assisted before and after the actual flight
experience such as check-in, proper transfer, arrival service, baggage and cargo delivery.
B4. Price Price is the sum of value that consumers are willing to pay or give in exchange for the
benefits.
B5. Alliance Alliance is two or more airlines agreeing to cooperate on a unique organization entity.
Alliances may facilitate travelers making inter-airline connections while travelers also benefit
from lower prices due to alliance.
B6. Promotion and
advertising
Promotion and advertising consist of sale promotion, advertisement through various media,
public relation, call center for providing advice, website for providing information, Frequent
Flyer Program (FFP), and privilege.
114
A2. Service Quality B7. Reliability Reliability is the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately,
including flight attendance, ground staff and captain.
B8. Tangible The components of tangible, in term of personnel, include well dress, good personality and
neat appearance.
B9. Empathy Service personnel have the ability to solve passenger task, understand customer need, and
toward facilitate the process of meeting passenger demand.
B10. Responsiveness Responsiveness refers to enthusiasm as well as willing to help passenger and listen to
passenger opinion with friendly.
B11. Assurance Assurance refers to staff training in the use of tools and knowledge of service processes, and
the perception that the service is competent and not going to harm anyone.
A3. Flight Management B12. Punctuality Punctuality is on time without delay flight.
B13. Flight
availability
Provide the proper of flight schedule and enough seats available and the availability of
alternative flights in case of delay or cancellation.
B14. Flight
compensation
Flight compensation will assist passengers in the event of denied boarding, flight
cancellations, or long delays of flights and consists of such as financially compensation.
115
B15. Flight
announcement
Flight announcement informs passengers the information about an event that has happened
or is going to happen such as quick announcement of flight schedules, notify customers of the
exact time of flight when delay or cancellation occur, and sufficient flight information during
flight.
A4. Airline Aircraft B16. Cleanliness Cleanliness is the state of being clean and free from dirt, and the process of achieving and
maintaining the state including clean restrooms in the cabin.
B17. Comfort Comfort is a sense of physical or psychological ease, for example, provide air condition,
well arrange comfort seat, and easy-to-use shelf space for baggage during the whole journey.
B18. Entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience, or
gives pleasure and delight via providing up-to-date newspapers, magazines, and video films
during the flight. It may not be free.
B19. Facilities Facilities relate to the equipment which is fashionable, up to date and easy to use, for
example, new model of aircraft, Wi-Fi on the airplane as well as air-conditioner and light.
116
SUBJECT III: Description and example of questionnaire form
The important level of comparison checkbox
Table 1 Pair wise comparison measurement scales
Implication Equal
importance
Weak
importance
Essential/Strong
importance
Very strong or
demonstrated
importance
Absolutely
importance
Intermediate
values between
adjacent scale
values
Intensity of
important
1 3 5 7 9 2,4,6,8
The important level of comparison is separated into 1 to 9 intensity score following the pair wise comparison measurement scales in the
Table 1. Supposing, decision maker think that the key factors to select LCA compose of Brand image and Safety record, thus the possibly
grading score that decision maker give to “Brand image” factor and “Safety record” factor will be divided into 3 patterns, from the example
below:
117
Example 1:
If decision maker give credit to “Brand image” = “Safety record” by the implication of “Equal importance”, the decision maker will
circle “1” in the middle of Brand image and Safety record area, for grading score to “Equal importance”, 1:1, on the important level of
comparison between 2 Factors checkbox, shown in Table 2:
Table 2 Brand image is equal importance to Safety record with 1:1 checkbox
The important level of comparison checkbox
Factors
9:1
8:1
7:1
6:1
5:1
4:1
3:1
2:1
1:1
1:2
1:3
1:4
1:5
1:6
1:7
1:8
1:9
Factors
Brand
image
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Safety
record
Equal
import
ance
Weak
importan
ce
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Very
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Abso
lutely
importan
ce
Wea
k
import
ance
Str
ong
import
ance
Ver
y S
trong
import
ance
Abso
lute
ly
import
ance
Im
pli
cati
on Im
plicatio
n
118
Example 2:
If decision maker give credit to “Brand image” ≥ “Safety record” by the implication of “Strong importance”, the decision maker will
circle “5” , in the left side on Brand image area, for grading score to “Strong importance”, 5:1, on the important level of comparison between 2
Factors checkbox, shown in Table 3:
Table 3 Brand image is strongly more importance than Safety record with 5:1 checkbox
The important level of comparison checkbox
Factors
9:1
8:1
7:1
6:1
5:1
4:1
3:1
2:1
1:1
1:2
1:3
1:4
1:5
1:6
1:7
1:8
1:9
Factors
Brand
image
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Safety
record
Equal
import
ance
Weak
importan
ce
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Very
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Abso
lutely
importan
ce
Wea
k
import
ance
Str
ong
import
ance
Ver
y S
trong
import
ance
Abso
lute
ly
import
ance
Im
pli
cati
on Im
plicatio
n
119
Example 3:
If decision maker give credit to “Safety record” ≥ “Brand image” by the implication of “Weak importance”, the decision maker will
circle “3” in the right side on Safety record area, for grading score to “Weak importance”, 3:1, on the important level of comparison between 2
Factors checkbox, shown in Table 4:
Table 4 Safety record is weakly more importance than Brand image with 3:1 checkbox
The important level of comparison checkbox
Factors
9:1
8:1
7:1
6:1
5:1
4:1
3:1
2:1
1:1
1:2
1:3
1:4
1:5
1:6
1:7
1:8
1:9
Factors
Brand
image
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Safety
record
Equal
import
ance
Weak
importan
ce
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Very
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Abso
lutely
importan
ce
Wea
k
import
ance
Str
ong
import
ance
Ver
y S
trong
import
ance
Abso
lute
ly
import
ance
Im
pli
cati
on Im
plicatio
n
120
SUBJECT IV: The questionnaire form
The questionnaire form has to be given credit for both dimension part and factor part comparison on selecting LCA
1. The analysis of the dimension part comparison on selecting LCA
There are 4 dimensions in this questionnaire form: for the definition of dimension please refer to subject II.
- A1: “Airline Corporate”
- A2: “Service Quality”
- A3: “Flight Management”
- A4: “Airline Aircraft”
Step 1 Please give the important priority of these 4 dimensions while selecting the LCA (by filling the code A1-A4, provided above)
____________________ ≥ ____________________ ≥ ____________________ ≥ ____________________
121
Step 2 Please circle the grading score on the important level of comparison checkbox, ground on pair wise comparison measurement
scales.
The important level of comparison checkbox
Dimensions
9:1
8:1
7:1
6:1
5:1
4:1
3:1
2:1
1:1
1:2
1:3
1:4
1:5
1:6
1:7
1:8
1:9
Dimensions
Airline
Corporate
(A1)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Service
Quality
(A2)
Airline
Corporate
(A1)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Flight
Management
(A3)
Airline
Corporate
(A1)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Airline
Aircraft
(A4)
Service
Quality
(A2)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Flight
Management
(A3)
Service
Quality
(A2)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Airline
Aircraft
(A4)
Flight
Management
(A3)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Airline
Aircraft
(A4)
Equal
import
ance
Weak
importan
ce
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Very
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Abso
lutely
importan
ce
Wea
k
import
ance
Str
ong
import
ance
Ver
y S
trong
import
ance
Abso
lute
ly
import
ance
Im
pli
cati
on Im
plicatio
n
122
2. The analysis of the factor part comparison on selecting LCA
There are 19 factors under 4 dimensions in this questionnaire form,
- Base on the A1: “Airline Corporate” dimension, it composes of 6 factors, including, B1: “Brand image”, B2: “Safety record”, B3:
“Service supply chain”, B4: “Price”, B5: “Alliance”, and B6: “Promotion and advertising”, moreover the other factors under those dimensions
are shown in table below, for the definition of factor please refer to subject II.
Dimensions and Factors
Airline Corporate (A1) Service Quality (A2) Flight Management (A3) Airline Aircraft (A4)
Brand image (B1) Reliability (B7) Punctuality (B12) Cleanliness (B16)
Safety record (B2) Tangible (B8) Flight availability (B13) Comfortable (B17)
Service supply chain (B3) Empathy (B9) Flight compensation (B14) Entertainment (B18)
Price (B4) Responsiveness (B10) Flight announcement (B15) Facilities (B19)
Alliance (B5) Assurance (B11)
Promotion and advertising (B6)
Fac
tors
123
2.1 The factor part comparison on selecting LCA considering the “Airline Corporate” dimension, are 6 factors including,
- B1: “Brand image”
- B2: “Safety record”
- B3: “Service supply chain”
- B4: “Price”
- B5: “Alliance”
- B6: “Promotion and advertising”
Step 1 Please give the important priority of these 6 factors while selecting the LCA (by filling the code B1-B6, provided above)
_______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________
124
Step 2 Please fill the grading score on the important level of comparison checkbox, ground on pair wise comparison measurement scales.
The important level of comparison checkbox
Factors
9:1
8:1
7:1
6:1
5:1
4:1
3:1
2:1
1:1
1:2
1:3
1:4
1:5
1:6
1:7
1:8
1:9
Factors
Brand
image
(B1)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Safety
record
(B2)
Brand
image
(B1)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Service
supply chain
(B3)
Brand
image
(B1)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Price
(B4)
Brand
image
(B1)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Alliance
(B5)
Brand
image
(B1)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Promotion
&advertising
(B6)
Equal
import
ance
Weak
impo
rtance
Stro
ng
impo
rtance
Very
Stro
ng
impo
rtance
Abso
lutely
impo
rtance
Wea
k
import
ance
Str
ong
import
ance
Ver
y S
trong
import
ance
Abso
lute
ly
import
ance
Im
pli
cati
on Im
plicatio
n
125
Safety
record
(B2)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Service
supply chain
(B3)
Safety
record
(B2)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Price
(B4)
Safety
record
(B2)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Alliance
(B5)
Safety
record
(B2)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Promotion
&advertising
(B6)
Service
supply
chain (B3)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Price
(B4)
Service
supply
chain (B3)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Alliance
(B5)
Service
supply
chain (B3)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Promotion
&advertising
(B6)
Price
(B4)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Alliance
(B5)
Price
(B4)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Promotion
&advertising
(B6)
Alliance
(B5)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Promotion
&advertising
(B6)
126
2.2 The factor part comparison on selecting LCA considering the “Service Quality” dimension, are 5 dimension factors including,
- B7: “Reliability”
- B8: “Tangible”
- B9: “Empathy”
- B10: “Responsiveness”
- B11: “Assurance”
Step 1 Please give the important priority of these 6 factors while selecting the LCA (by filling the code B7-B11, provided above)
_______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________
127
Step 2 Please fill the grading score on the important level of comparison checkbox, ground on pair wise comparison measurement scales.
The important level of comparison checkbox
Factors
9:1
8:1
7:1
6:1
5:1
4:1
3:1
2:1
1:1
1:2
1:3
1:4
1:5
1:6
1:7
1:8
1:9
Factors
Reliability
(B7)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Tangible
(B8)
Reliability
(B7)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Empathy
(B9)
Reliability
(B7)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Responsiveness
(B10)
Reliability
(B7)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Assurance
(B11)
Tangible
(B8)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Empathy
(B9)
Tangible
(B8)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Responsiveness
(B10)
Tangible
(B8)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Assurance
(B11)
Empathy
(B9)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Responsiveness
(B10)
Equal
import
ance
Weak
importan
ce
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Very
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Abso
lutely
importan
ce
Wea
k
import
ance
Str
ong
import
ance
Ver
y S
trong
import
ance
Abso
lute
ly
import
ance
Im
pli
cati
on Im
plicatio
n
128
Empathy
(B9)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Assurance
(B11)
Responsiveness
(B10)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Assurance
(B11)
129
2.3 The factor part comparison on selecting LCA considering the “Flight Management” dimension, are 4 factors including,
- B12: “Punctuality”
- B13: “Flight availability”
- B14: “Flight compensation”
- B15: “Flight announcement”
Step 1 Please give the important priority of these 6 factors while selecting the LCA (by filling the code B12-B15, provided above)
_______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________
130
Step 2 Please fill the grading score on the important level of comparison checkbox, ground on pair wise comparison measurement scales.
The important level of comparison checkbox
Dimensions
9:1
8:1
7:1
6:1
5:1
4:1
3:1
2:1
1:1
1:2
1:3
1:4
1:5
1:6
1:7
1:8
1:9
Dimensions
Punctuality
(B12)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Flight
availability
(B13)
Punctuality
(B12)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Flight
compensation
(B14)
Punctuality
(B12)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Flight
announcement
(B15)
Flight
availability
(B13)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Flight
compensation
(B14)
Flight
availability
(B13)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Flight
announcement
(B15)
Flight
compensation
(B14)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Flight
announcement
(B15)
Equal
import
ance
Weak
importan
ce
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Very
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Abso
lutely
importan
ce
Wea
k
import
ance
Str
ong
import
ance
Ver
y S
trong
import
ance
Abso
lute
ly
import
ance
Im
pli
cati
on Im
plicatio
n
131
2.4 The factor part comparison on selecting LCA considering the “Airline Aircraft” dimension, are 4 factors including,
- B16: “Cleanliness”
- B17: “Comfortable”
- B18: “Entertainment”
- B19: “Facilities”
Step 1 Please give the important priority of these 6 factors while selecting the LCA (by filling the code B16-B19, provided above)
_______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________ ≥ _______________
132
Step 2 Please fill the grading score on the important level of comparison checkbox, ground on pair wise comparison measurement scales.
The important level of comparison checkbox
Factors
9:1
8:1
7:1
6:1
5:1
4:1
3:1
2:1
1:1
1:2
1:3
1:4
1:5
1:6
1:7
1:8
1:9
Factors
Cleanliness
(B16)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Comfort
(B17)
Cleanliness
(B16)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Entertainment
(B18)
Cleanliness
(B16)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Facilities
(B19)
Comfort
(B17)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Entertainment
(B18)
Comfort
(B17)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Facilities
(B19)
Entertainment
(B18)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Facilities
(B19)
Equal
import
ance
Weak
importan
ce
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Very
Stro
ng
importan
ce
Abso
lutely
importan
ce
Wea
k
import
ance
Str
ong
import
ance
Ver
y S
trong
import
ance
Abso
lute
ly
import
ance
Im
pli
cati
on Im
plicatio
n
133
SUBJECT V: Basic Information
1. Gender: Male Female
2. Age: Less than 15 15-24 25-34 35-49 50-64 65 up
3. Education level: Low than Bachelor Bachelor’s degree
Master’s degree Doctor’s degree
4. Monthly income: Less than 14,000 THB 14,000-30,000 THB
30,001-60,000 THB 60,001-90,000 THB 90,001 THB up
5. Occupation: Student Government sector
Private sector Others: Housewife, retired
6. How often do you travel by air transportation per year?
Less than 1 time 1-5 times 6-14 times
15-29 times more than 30 times
7. What is the purpose of your flight?
Business Tourism Other_____________ (specified)
8. Have you ever traveled on the LCA?
Yes No
9. Suggestions
***All of your information will be not disclosed to public***
Thank you for your cooperation