Market Factors Influencing the Decision to Patronage Low Cost Carriers

The purposes of this research were to study the behavior of passengers who frequently flied with low cost carriers and to study market factors which could influence the decision making of customers to patronage low cost carriers in Thailand. This paper was a mixed research of both the qualitative and quantitative technique. A total of 15 key informants were interviewed by using an in-depth interview. Also, a total of 400 low cost airlines' passengers were interviewed via questionnaire. The findings revealed that respondents were male and female at a similar proportion with the majority having an undergraduate degree, working for private company, and had income in the range of 20,000 -30,000 baht per month. The main decision to choose low-cost carriers was low price in which customers could purchase online. In addition, the findings also revealed that the first three market factors influencing the decision of the respondents to patronage low-cost airlines were low price, channel of buying ticket, and promotion factor. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).