Analyzing service quality of domestic airlines in an emerging country-Bangladesh by structural equation models

Nowadays, air travel has become an important transportation in life. Travel by airline helps to save time and shorter the distance to travel from one place to another. Offering a better service to airline customers is extremely crucial in the existing competing environment for the development of airlines. Service providers necessitate comprehending customers' expectations from the services with the aim of better dealing with their wants and expectations. The objectives of this research are to evaluate the domestic airline SQ in Bangladesh and to identify the important variables that influence the SQ of domestic airlines. Data collection was conducted with a purposebuilt questionnaire survey for the evaluation of SQ assessed by the service users. For this study, 600 persons, who used domestic airlines service in Bangladesh at least once in their life, were interviewed. Several models were developed with twenty-three endogenous variables and two latent variables namely 'system performance' and 'service features'. Finally, the proposed models have been compared and the optimal one is found out, which best represents the actual scenario has been identified as the best model. Result shows that 'pilot skill', 'technical safety', 'comfort level', 'aircraft fitness' and 'physical condition' are the most significant observed variables that influence the airline service. It is also found that the users are least satisfied with 'toilet condition at airport', 'cleanness of airport' and 'luggage handling'. The airline companies and concerned authority may focus the results to take necessary actions for improving the service. From the findings of the results, the recommendations can be listed as the actions required by the authority and the airline operations in Bangladesh.