Dual-Level Evaluation Framework for Airport User Satisfaction

Introduction

International tourism performs strongly worldwide fueled by a positive economy and increased air capacity. Growth in arrivals outpaces the global rate of economic growth. In 2019, Europe the world’s largest tourism region, reported growth (+4%), led by destinations in Southern and Mediterranean Europe and Central and Eastern Europe (both +5%). Especially Southern and Mediterranean Europe have undergone enormous growth in the tourist demand during the last decade, which in turn has significantly increased the demand for air travel (UNWTO, 2019). Among the larger destinations, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Croatia saw robust performance. Demand for air transport is projected to grow from 44 trillion in 2015 to 122 trillion in 2050 according to latest International Transport Forum (ITF) projections (ITF, 2019). International aviation will increase by 5.0% by 2030 and will continue to grow through 2050 with compound annual growth rate of 3.8%. The spectacular growth in the international air transport market and the accompanying development of new markets has greatly contributed to improved global connectivity (Dimitriou et al., 2018). According to UNWTO, 2019 the consumer travel in order to change, to pursuit a healthy life, raise awareness on sustainability.

Efficient air transport networks and airport infrastructures not only provide direct benefit for travellers, enhancing connectivity and competitiveness but significantly contributes to sustainable development. Airport enterprises contribution to social and economic socioeconomic development is defined as a multidimensional topic affecting many aspects of people’s lives, directly, linked with the business inside and outside the airports. Evidence on this is that most international organizations, provide dedicated activities to promote the goals of human development and well-being towards sustainable business development. The development of airport infrastructure to meet future demand needs is on the top of the agenda for governments, and stakeholders to stimulate new income generation and business growth (Dimitriou and Sartzetaki, 2018). Consequently, there is a risk that a significant share of the predicted growth in transport demand will be left unaddressed if existing air transport infrastructure are not expanded and new infrastructures are not built to meet this demand (Dimitriou et al., 2017).

Based on these trends significant competition between air transport industry enterprises is growing. In order to face this challenge, corporate management focus on measures and targets to optimize customer service (Dimitriou, 2017). Especially, for transportation enterprises such airports, efficient management target in terms of pricing and optimum resources allocation is to define the equilibrium between offered service quality and cost (Dimitriou, 2018a).

All transport enterprises are looking for measures and targets that will enable them to better serve their customers, while at the same time reducing costs (Oum et al., 2003). The objective of the service quality analysis is the not only the determination of service quality that affects the airport’s efficient management, but also the analysis of the correlation between different service quality dimensions as compared to overall passenger service satisfaction as stated by Widarsyah (2013). Brady et al., 2002 defined that ‘Satisfaction is an overall effective response to a perceived discrepancy between a prior expectation and a perceived performance after consumption’.

Airport service quality analysis key objectives are to: (a) identify the needs of the users of an airport; (b) quantify their satisfactions from the facilities and promoted services at airports; and (c) highlight recommendation and actions to meet their needs and level of satisfaction. The conceptual framework based on review airport user satisfaction, develop a holistic approach to evaluate overall satisfaction, implement methodology by choosing the appropriate airport and calibration results. The evaluation framework proposed is a tool for managers, operators and stakeholders, in order to define the level of airport service and thus further improve the customer level of service and enhance airport enterprise performance management.

The paper is structured in the following manner: after this introduction, the background and key literature review is presented in next section, while following section provides the methodological approach. Then the numerical application is given, and the results are highlighted and discussed in following section . Some concluding remarks are presented in next section and the references are given.