Why and How Do Airports Manage and Improve Their Quality of Service?

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

With the ongoing privatization of airports in many countries, competition between different facilities is starting to intensify. The emergence of low-cost carriers contributes to this tendency, as they tend to actively seek the best offer and pressure airports to provide lower prices and higher savings opportunities than their neighbors. However, competition also takes place in terms of service quality, with airports trying to offer the best experience to the airlines and passengers. This essay will review the service quality goals set by airports, instruments used to measure relevant indicators, and improvement measures are taken. It posits that airports try to serve both airlines and customers, collecting objective and subjective metrics and addressing them.

Discussion

Objectives

Privatization and the ensuing competition are the primary drivers of service quality improvement in airports. As Sengur and Vasigh (2018) note, firms that charge more than their product is worth will eventually be excluded from the competitive market. As such, it is essential to either lower the prices, which can make the airport less profitable, or increase the quality of the product offered so that it meets the demands of airlines and passengers. To that end, it is necessary to understand these customers, particularly those likely to consider competing airports. As Barrett (2004) confirms, these companies of interest are LCCs, which we’re willing to deviate from the hub-and-spoke model and move to secondary airports, unlike full-service carriers. The expectations of these airlines should be considered first and foremost when adjusting airport operations.

With that said, airports still serve passengers and should take the needs of both groups into account. Kossmann (2017) integrates the needs of both categories and outlines five significant aspects of service: quality, speed, dependability, flexibility, and costs. The first is the ability to deliver offerings to expectations, with minimal mistakes. Speed can refer to short waiting times for customers but also overall operational efficiency, such as turnaround times. Dependability is the ability to perform well consistently, and flexibility refers to being able to adapt to changing circumstances. The last goal, cost, is self-explanatory, enabling increased margins or lower prices if it is reduced. These five items combine to form a picture of the airport’s attractiveness, but each needs to be evaluated first.

Measurement

To obtain an understanding of an airport’s performance, it is necessary to use a set of quantifiable indicators, but their meaning is limited without a benchmark. To circumvent this problem, agencies such as the IATA and the FAA started collecting regional or global performance indices using the Levels of Service (LOS) model (Correia et al., 2008). It uses the two dimensions of processing (defined by space and waiting time) and holding (defined by space and occupancy) facilities to separate different aspects of airport operation into six different service quality levels without disclosing unnecessary information. The evaluation provided by the LOS model is objective and allows airports and airlines to clearly determine which facility is operationally superior.

However, recently, challenges to the LOS approach as too impersonal have emerged. It evaluates the airport’s operations from the technical viewpoint without considering the human aspect. Fodness and Murray (2007) demonstrate how LOS disregards airport customers and how incorporating their subjective impressions of their interactions with the airport workers and facilities can enhance data collection and overall performance. With that said, it should also be mentioned that the usage of subjective indicators is associated with a variety of issues, most notably biases and inaccuracies. Managers should exercise care to avoid leading questions, differentiate passengers by type, and account for centering or endpoint bias when designing and analyzing surveys. Once they succeed in doing so, they can combine the subjective and objective indicators to benchmark the terminal’s performance against the competition and the industry as a whole.

Improvement

Once the areas in which the airport performs inadequately are identified, improvement initiatives can start taking place. A variety of measures is available that help accomplishes this objective, depending on the specific issue. As Wu (2016) notes, in matters such as turnaround times, awareness of the indicator can be enough alone, pressuring the supervisors and controllers responsible to understand and address their inefficiencies. At other times, the management will need to create organization-wide practices that aim to address particular issues. Forsyth (2016) gives the example of cost structure changes that aim to reduce the charges for LCCs and their passengers via lower off-peak prices or reduced long-stay parking rates. Without requiring fundamental changes to the airport’s operations, these measures can increase its attractiveness considerably.

Other targets, particularly those related to human communications, can be more challenging to achieve. They often require a substantial overhaul in the organization’s structure that can nevertheless be challenging to quantify. Sricharoenpramong (2018) states that competitiveness is contingent on innovation, for which it is necessary to make use of human intellectual, social and emotional capital. To make use of it, the company should introduce appropriate training and adjust its organizational culture to promote specific traits such as reliability, helpfulness, and enthusiasm. Ultimately, service quality improvement implies activity on all levels of the organization with the purpose of meeting and exceeding current standards. To achieve this goal, every worker at the airport has to contribute actively, and this level of enthusiasm can take a long time to achieve.

Conclusion

With the advent of privatization and the emergence of LCCs, which are pressuring airports to reduce prices and increase service quality, airports now have to take numerous measures to attract and retain client airlines and passengers. They have to reduce prices and offer opportunities for improved efficiency to airlines, to which end quality reviews and improvements are continuously taking place. To understand their overall performance compared to potential competition, airports can use standardized global metrics based on the LOS framework. However, they also have to consider the personal impressions of customers and adjust operations to suit their expectations. As such, depending on the human resources available, different airports can have substantially different approaches to service quality, forcing airlines to consider their advantages carefully.

References

Barrett, S. D. (2004). How do the demands for airport services differ between full-service carriers and low-cost carriers? Journal of Air Transport Management, 10(1), 33-39. Web.

Correia, A. R., Wirasinghe, S. C., & de Barros, A. G. (2008). A global index for level of service evaluation at airport passenger terminals. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 44(4), 607-620. Web.

Fodness, D., & Murray, B. (2007). Passengers’ expectations of airport service quality. Journal of Services Marketing, 21(7), 492-506. Web.

Forsyth, P. (2016). Competition between major and secondary airports: Implications for pricing, regulation and welfare. In P. Forsyth, D. Gillen, J. Muller, & H. M. Niemeier (Eds.), Airport competition: The European experience (pp. 77-88). Taylor & Francis.

Kossmann, M. (2017). Delivering excellent service quality in aviation: A practical guide for internal and external service providers. Taylor & Francis.

Sengur, F. K., & Vasigh, B. (2018). An assessment of airport governance policies from a stakeholder perspective. In S. Seifi & D. Crowther (Eds.), Stakeholders, governance and responsibility (pp. 189-206). Emerald Publishing Limited.

Sricharoenpramong, S. (2018). Service quality improvement of ground staff at Don Mueang International Airport. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 39(1), 15-21. Web.

Wu, C. (2016). Airline operations and delay management: Insights from airline economics, networks and strategic schedule planning. Taylor & Francis.

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