“Study of service quality, price sensitivity, and passenger satisfaction in India’s airline sector”

Understanding the determinants of customer satisfaction is crucial for airlines to maintain and grow their customer base. This study aims to analyze how various service quality dimensions and prices impact airline attractiveness using the service quality (SERVQUAL) model. Data were collected from 400 respondents through an online questionnaire using the convenience sampling method. The respondents included a diverse mix of frequent flyers, occasional travelers, and business professionals, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of passenger perspectives in the Indian airline sector. This study tested the hypotheses by analyzing the data using structural equation modelling (SEM) to understand the relationships between service quality attributes, price, passenger satisfaction, and airline attractiveness. The results indicate that empathy, price, tangibles, and satisfaction determinants positively develop attractiveness among passengers to use and continue in airline services. The relationships between empathy and satisfaction (β = 0.130, t = 2.317, p = 0.021), tangibles and satisfaction (β = 0.214, t = 4.321, p = 0.000), price and satisfaction (β = 0.425, t = 7.825, p = 0.000) were statistically significant, and satisfaction positively influenced airline attractiveness (β = 0.895, t = 75.529, p = 0.000). The assurance, reliability, responsiveness attributes must improve to attract passengers. The results provide insights into aviation industry and help them to make better policies and strategies to implement services and customer satisfaction to sustain heavy aviation competition in India.


INTRODUCTION
The Indian airline sector has experienced rapid growth and transformation over the past few decades, emerging as one of the world's largest and most competitive aviation markets.According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, 2018), there were 4.3 billion passengers in 2018.The organization projects that number to rise to 10 billion by 2040.In 2016, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicted that the number would be 7.2 billion by 2035, with a compounded annual growth rate of 3.7%.(CAGR) (Koech et al., 2023).This growth is fueled by a burgeoning middle class, increasing urbanization, and the government's initiatives to improve air travel infrastructure.However, with this expansion comes heightened competition among airlines, necessitating a deeper understanding of factors influencing passenger choices and loyalty.Among these factors, service quality, price sensitivity, and passenger satisfaction stand out as critical determinants of airline success.
Nowadays, modern people are euthanistic towards airline services to reach various destinations without wasting too much timewhich has become an integral part of everyday human transportation.In the

LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature on service quality, price sensitivity, and passenger satisfaction in India's airline sector has gathered significant attention in academic and industry research due to the airline market's rapid expansion and competitive dynamics.Service quality, often measured using the SERVQUAL model, known as the quality of services model, is pronounced by Parasuraman et al. (1985a) and involves five core essential factors: reliability, tangibility, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy, which measure customer satisfaction.
The quality of services influences satisfaction among aviation customers Law et al. (2022).They explored the study which examined the relationship between airline service quality, customer satisfaction, and repurchase intention among air passengers in Laos.This study revealed how different dimensions of service quality influence passengers' overall satisfaction and attention to flying with the same airline again.The research focuses on the Laotian context, providing insight into Laotian air travellers' specific needs and preferences.Textmining techniques were employed by Lucini et al. (2020) for online customer reviews and uncovered vital dimensions influencing airline customer satisfaction.The study identified several critical factors, including service quality, flight experience, ground services, value for money, and timeliness.Sentiment analysis revealed that positive reviews are typically linked to high-quality service and good in-flight experiences, while negative reviews often pertain to delays and poor customer service.Passengers' perception of airline service quality in Pakistan's international aviation services using the SERVQUAL model was explored by Shah et al. (2020).The results revealed that passenger satisfaction mediates the relationship between airline service quality and behavioral intentions.
Negative impacts of operational service failures on customer satisfaction was investigated by Masorgo et al. (2022) in their study, such as arrival delays, mishandled baggage, and involuntarily denied boarding based on the drawing from expectancy disconfirmation theory (EDT).The findings of this study suggest that arrival delays and involuntarily denied boarding negatively affect airline passengers' satisfaction.Furthermore, advertising and increasing flight personnel salaries will positively enhance customer satisfaction.
The level of client satisfaction among airline passengers and other users of Huambo's airport in the Angola context was studied by Relógio and Tavares (2023).This study's findings suggest that the highest passenger satisfaction is generated through the aircraft size and the ease of arranging an acceptably priced trip.Hence, higher levels of airline prices may cause dissatisfaction among airline customers.Furthermore, aviation passengers' demands for international round-trip flights using an Integrated Choice and Latent Variable (ICLV) model was analyzed by Munoz and Laniado (2021).This study''s findings explored passengers' satisfaction generated through passengers' personality traits, airline characteristics, and passenger flight experiences with travellers' perceptions of air carrier services.
The SERVQUAL model was proposed by Rezaei et al. (2018) to assess the perceived quality of service for the baggage handling system.These research results revealed that the dimensions of tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy significantly predict airline passenger satisfaction in handling baggage services.Lippitt et al. (2023) intended to assess business travellers' satisfaction with airline service quality using the Kano model and importance satisfaction analysis (ISA).This research findings suggest that convenient flight schedules, frequent flyer programs, flighton-time performance management, cabin crew politeness, and cabin crew knowledge and experience influenced airline passengers' satisfaction.Furthermore, investigated the factors influencing brand love, passengers' loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth in the airline sector was studied by Boubker and Naoui (2022).The findings of this study suggest that terminal tangible, empathy and airline image influence the level of service quality and price towards the passengers' satisfaction.
Additional four dimensions of SERVQUAL to determine airline passengers' satisfaction was investigated Yalcin Kavus et al. (2022).Their research found that the environment, pandemic, digital technology, and information systems with SERVQUAL core constructs significantly predict service quality and airline passengers' satisfaction.Similarly, airline passengers' perception of safety relationship towards demographics attributes, service quality measures, overall satisfaction and loyalty was explored by Shiwakoti et al. (2022).This study's findings revealed that tangibles, reliability, assurance, empathy, and airline-specific measures (flight experience, ground service, airline employees, and flight schedule) significantly affected passengers' perception of safety.Furthermore, re-spondents' differences in educational qualification, frequency of travel, ticket types and membership in frequent flyer programs (FFP) significantly affected their perception of safety.Likewise, passengers' overall satisfaction and loyalty to the airline also significantly affected the perception of safety.No effects on the perception of safety were found for differences in gender, age, nationality, income, and purpose of travel.
The relationship between the quality of airline service attributes and passenger satisfaction was explored Park et al. (2020).They found that cleanliness, food and beverages, in-flight entertainment and aviation price factors significantly influence passenger satisfaction in the aviation industry.Similarly, a significant relationship between service quality and price fairness in improving customer satisfaction and building customer trust in the aviation industry in Indonesia was found by Setiawan et al. (2020).This study's findings suggest that customers' positive experiences, optimum service quality, and price fairness perception enabled the airline company to be closer to them and build their trust.Furthermore, the passenger's satisfaction mediated the positive relationship between service quality and price fairness to customer trust.Furthermore, the impacts of service quality and price on customer loyalty in Southeast Asia using the AIRQUAL model was studied Shen and Yahya (2021).They found that price and service quality dimensions significantly enhance satisfaction towards generating loyalty.Furthermore, the significant relationship between loyalty, price and service quality is mediated by passenger satisfaction.Similarly, the positive relationships between in-flight food and beverage (core, external, and delivery), price reasonableness, airline image, satisfaction, and re-flying intention was expored Han et al. (2019).These research findings recommended that a higher-order structure of in-flight food and beverage quality significantly enhances passengers' perceived reasonableness of price, airline image, and satisfaction in their re-flying decision-making process.
The relationship between airline branding, brand management, and brand measurement from the perspective of airline marketing professionals using Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) measures was conducted by Sezgen et al. (2023).In their study, they suggest that awareness, functional and technical service performance, credibility, differentiation, value, satisfaction, and loyalty significantly enhance airline brand management.Similarly, to explore the relationship between consumers' brand experience, brand love, satisfaction, and brand loyalty, Deneyimi et al. ( 2020) conducted a study and found that a positive and significant relationship exists between brand experiences, brand love, and customer satisfaction.Furthermore, customer satisfaction significantly enhances brand loyalty toward the airline sector.
Various studies often revealed gaps between customer expectations and the actual service delivery.These gaps can lead to dissatisfaction, yet the specific dimensions where such gaps occur vary widely.Customer satisfaction drivers can vary significantly across cultures and regions (Alkhatib & Migdadi, 2018).What constitutes satisfactory service in one context may not translate to another, necessitating localized studies.
Studying customer satisfaction in the airline industry is a critical area of research due to its direct impact on business performance and customer loyalty (Ali et al., 2015).Despite significant research in this field, several unresolved issues and contradictions persist, which justify the need for further study and exploration: There is inconsistency in customer satisfaction levels reported across different airlines and regions.Some airlines consistently achieve high satisfac-tion ratings, while others struggle.Understanding the factors contributing to this variability is crucial.While service quality is often cited as a key determinant of satisfaction, its specific dimensions (e.g., reliability, responsiveness, empathy) and their relative importance remain ambiguous and context-dependent (Chow, 2014).With the advent of digital technologies and changing consumer preferences, there is a need to investigate how these trends influence customer satisfaction and expectations in the airline industry (Leon & Martín, 2020).Further investigating how technologies like AI, IoT, and mobile apps influence customer satisfaction can provide insights into new service delivery models and customer interaction points (Perçin, 2018).
Understanding how airlines handle service failures and customer complaints effectively can significantly impact overall satisfaction and loyalty (Jiang & Zhang, 2016).Comparative studies across different cultures and regions can reveal nuanced differences in satisfaction drivers, helping airlines tailor their services more effectively (Messner, 2016).Thus, choosing this area should consider both the contemporary challenges airlines face and the potential for impactful contributions to customer satisfaction management strategies.
The aims of the study is to analyze how various service quality dimensions and prices impact the attractiveness of airlines.Figure 1 illustrates the structural research model, with corresponding research hypotheses as follows: H4: The presence of assurance has positively enhanced passengers' satisfaction.
H5: The presence of empathy has positively enhanced passengers' satisfaction.

METHODOLOGY
This study adopted quantitative research and a convenience sampling method to collect samples from airline passengers using airlines in India, collected through the online questionnaire to determine customer satisfaction and airline attractiveness.The structural equation modelling examines the relationship between assurance, reliability, empathy tangibles, response, the price towards satisfaction, and airline attractiveness capacity among the customers to continue intention in Indian airways.
The model fit of the structural model is determined through standardized root mean squared residual (SRMR), which statistical data suggest that 0.069 ≤ 0.08 (Suki, 2014).For the relationship analysis, the path coefficient would be more than 0.1, the t-statistics must be more than statistics 1.645, and the p-value must be less than 0.05.Table 4 results indicate that the relationship between reliability and satisfaction (H1) displayed as statistically insignificant (β = 0.077, t =1.507, and p = 0.132), the relationship between tangibles and satisfaction (H2) will be statistically significant (β = 0.214, t = 4.321, and p = 0.000), the relationship between responsiveness and satisfaction (H3) will indicate that has insignificant (β = 0.090, t =1.533, and p = 0.125), the relationship between assurance and satisfaction (H4) will indicate that has insignificant (β = 0.069, t = 1.340, and p = 0.180), the relationship between empathy and satisfaction (H5) will indicate that has significant (β = 0.130, t = 2.317, and p = 0.021), the relationship between price and satisfaction (H6) will be found to be statistically significant (β = 0.425, t = 7.825, and p = 0.000), and satisfaction will positively influence airline attractiveness (H7) has indicated that has significant (β = 0.895, t =75.529, and p = 0.000).Therefore, empathy, price, and tangibles lead to

RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS
This current research study contributes to the airline managers, theoretical implications, and government for making policy frameworks.For the

CONCLUSION
This research aims to examine the relationship between pricing and several aspects of service quality and how appealing airlines are.The current research enables the customer satisfaction and airline attractiveness customers to the aviation industry in India using the SERVQUAL model and price sensitivity.The findings indicate that price, physical tangibles, and empathy are vital in predicting customer satisfaction and attracting new passengers to the aviation industry.Hence, reliability, responsiveness and assurance were insignificant when predicting customer satisfaction.Thus, airlines should focused on responsiveness, assurance, and reliability factors, maintain customer relationship management to gain a sustainable advantage in the aviation industry and focus on the price reasonability factor to attract new passengers.In comparison, more than sixty per cent of the population has not been attracted to travel by airlines to India.This study's sample size was comparatively small, and the population was limited to airlines in India.This study adopts only the SERVQUAL model to generate customer satisfaction and attractiveness findings.Future researchers should focus on the comparative study of the SERVQUAL and AIRQUAL models to generate empirical findings relating to passengers' satisfaction and also concentrate on the airline flight attendants' behavioral intention and satisfaction of passengers in the aviation industry.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Measurement model with average variance extracted (AVE) value

Table 1 .
Demographic profile of the respondents

Table 2 .
Assessment of measurement model

Table 3 .
Discriminant validity analysis using the Fornell-Larcker criterion

Table 4 .
Kavus et al., 2022)tural model and hypotheses testing the revisit intention and attracting new passengers to the aviation industry.Previous studies (Al Awadh, 2023; Shah et al., 2020; Shiwakoti et al., 2022; Wahab et al., 2015; YalcinKavus et al., 2022)embark on the satisfaction of airlines' passengers using the SERVQUAL model.Additionally, this research implies that the price factor significantly predicts satisfaction, revisit intention, and the attraction of new customers.The researchers and practitioners consider the price factor with the SERQUAL model.These study findings suggest that airline managers should improve customer reliability, assurance and responsiveness.The government insists on the policy framework for maintaining reasonable price sensitivity, customer service quality, and safeguarding policies for customers.