An Investigation into the Impact of Service Quality, Frequent Flier Programs and Safety Perception on Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty in the Airline Industry in Southern Africa

Sandada Maxwell () and Matibiri Bright ()
Additional contact information
Sandada Maxwell: Senior Lecturer, University of Zimbabwe
Matibiri Bright: MBA student University of Zimbabwe

South East European Journal of Economics and Business, 2016, vol. 11, issue 1, 41-53

Abstract: This study aims to identify the factors that make passengers loyal to an airline in Southern Africa by investigating the impact of service quality and safety perception on customer satisfaction and how satisfaction and frequent flyer programs (FFP) subsequently influence customer loyalty. The key finding was that service quality positively influenced customer satisfaction, and satisfaction was an important antecedent of customer loyalty. The analysis also suggested that safety perception and FFP positively influence customer loyalty, while their relationship with satisfaction was not significant. An analysis of switching behaviour revealed that satisfied customers may still switch to other airlines. The main contribution of this study is the development of a customer loyalty model for the aviation industry in Southern Africa. Knowledge of customer loyalty drivers will assist airline marketing managers in developing strategies for improving passenger load factors and profitability.

Keywords: Customer loyalty; satisfaction; service quality; safety; frequent flier programmes; aviation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jeb-2016-0006 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:seejeb:v:11:y:2016:i:1:p:41-53:n:6

DOI: 10.1515/jeb-2016-0006

Access Statistics for this article

South East European Journal of Economics and Business is currently edited by Adnan Efendic, Vesna Babić-Hodović and Aziz Šunje

More articles in South East European Journal of Economics and Business from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().