A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PASSENGER SERVICE DELIVERY OF SELECTED AIRLINES IN NIGERIA.

Abstract

This study investigates international airline passenger service delivery with reference to Med-view, British airways and Virgin Atlantic operations in Nigeria over a period of 10 years (2007 to 2016). The study considered the factors that is taken into consideration in the determination of passenger satisfaction en-route international destinations from Nigeria. The study proposes to determine the important service quality attributes that influences passenger satisfaction and evaluating the relationship of price with passenger satisfaction on international flights in Nigeria. Primary method of data collection was used is well structured questionnaire distributed to the airlines passengers and, secondary data were collected to ascertain the magnitude of passengers handled over a period of time: 2007 to 2016. Relative importance index (RII) method was used to rank the services of the three airlines, the higher the RII value the better the passenger satisfaction. Virgin Atlantic was ranked first with mean aggregate RII value of 0.808, British airways came second with mean aggregate RII value of 0.760, Med-view airline came third in ranking with mean aggregate RII value of 0.584. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to examine the level of passengers’ satisfaction with fare charged, the correlation was statistically significant with correlation coefficient (r) values of 0.765, 0.492 and 0.811 for Med-view airline, British airways and Virgin Atlantic respectively with P < 0.05. Strong financial institutions such as Bank of Industries and others in Nigeria should provide lump sum of loans with longer time pay-back period available to airlines to get large jumbo jets and other equipment used in modern aviation industry. Policy makers and industry regulators (Ministry of Aviation, Nigeria civil aviation authority (NCAA), Federal airport authority of Nigeria (FAAN)) need to take pragmatics steps (setting standards for the airlines to meet) to ensure that the airlines continually improve their services so as to provide services that exceeds passenger expectation. The research work revealed the most significant services which are: safety and security, appearance of staffs, courteous employees, behavior of staff and good communication skill as the most important services that determines passenger satisfaction, and there is a significant relationship between passenger satisfaction and fares. The revealed important services are the determinants of choice of airline by passengers.