Ⅰ. Introduction
Recently, delays in Air Transportation service are increasing in Korea. Owing to a delays, customers often wait minutes, hours, days to receive their service. As a matter of fact, some people dislike waiting so much that they are wi...
Ⅰ. Introduction
Recently, delays in Air Transportation service are increasing in Korea. Owing to a delays, customers often wait minutes, hours, days to receive their service. As a matter of fact, some people dislike waiting so much that they are willing to displace other people to wait for them.
Air Transportation service regards scheduled operation as core services to customer satisfaction. Previous research of service delays has shown that a delay influence on a customer's affective reaction(uncertainty, anger etc.,). So customers' perceived delays happened in each Air Transportation service encounter can seriously affect on customer satisfaction, relationship quality, and customer loyalty of Airlines service; yet their effects aren't relatively researched in terms of relationship marketing.
So, this study focuses on researching the critical role of customers' perceived air transportation service delay in relationship marketing. The test results were interpreted in terms of practical implications.
Ⅱ. Theoretical Foundation
In understanding the relationship between Air Transportation service delays and customer satisfaction, Taylor's The Wait Experience Model supplies bases for understanding. Based on the theory, the following conceptual model was suggested.
Figure 1. Conceptual model for Empirical Research
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Ⅲ. Research Hypothesis
Based on previous investigation, 7 hypotheses were suggested;
H1:Air transportation service delays can have a negative influence on relationship quality.
H2:Air transportation service delays can have a negative influence on customer satisfaction.
H3:Customer satisfaction can have a positive influence on relationship quality.
H4-1:Relationship quality can have a positive influence on behavioral·attitudinal loyalty.
H4-2:Relationship quality can have a positive influence on cognitive loyalty.
H5-1:Customer satisfaction can have a positive influence on behavioral·attitudinal loyalty.
H5-2:Customer satisfaction can have a positive influence on cognitive loyalty.
Ⅳ. Empirical Study
7 hypotheses were empirically studied. Data was collected from 500 people at Taegu & Pohang airport and travel agency located in Taegu city. The reliability and validity of the collected data were checked through the calculation of Cronbach's α and Exploratory·Confirmatory factor analysis.
Structural Equation Model(SEM) was used to estimate the parameters of the hypothesized model. LISREL 8.5 provided satisfactory model-fits in measurement model and structural equation model. The results of the hypothesis test was as follows;
<Table 1> Empirical Test Results
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Ⅴ. Conclusion
This paper examined the relationships of air transportation service delay with relationship quality and customer satisfaction, and investigated the effects of relationship quality and customer satisfaction on customer loyalty.
The research showed following results;
First, we investigated previous studies about air transportation service delay, customer satisfaction, relationship quality and customer loyalty. To establish theoretical foundations of the relationship between air transportation service delay and customer satisfaction, Taylor's The Wait Experience Model was used.
Second, air transportation service delay took strong negative effect on customer satisfaction, while it was not significant on relationship quality.
Third, customer satisfaction to the air transportation service directly showed very significant relationship with the relationship quality and customer loyalty. Besides, customer satisfaction indirectly took great effect on customer loyalty through relationship quality.
Fourth, relationship quality showed positive influence on customer loyalty.
Fifth, in the total effect analysis, air transportation service delays showed significant effect on customer loyalty.
As a results, 5 hypotheses among 7 were supported and proposed model with suggested affect was found effective.