Consumer Behaviour in the Airline Industry (Dissertation Sample)

Dissertation MSc International Business


CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR IN THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY


TITLE: CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR IN THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY.
Table of Contents
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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION  PAGEREF _Toc375913640 \h
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1. Background  PAGEREF _Toc375913641 \h
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A. Economic crisis and necessity of a new approach  PAGEREF _Toc375913642 \h
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B. Growing competition and Environment change  PAGEREF _Toc375913643 \h
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2. Problem formulation.  PAGEREF _Toc375913644 \h
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3. Research objective  PAGEREF _Toc375913645 \h
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4. Limitation of our research  PAGEREF _Toc375913646 \h
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Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW  PAGEREF _Toc375913647 \h
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5. Attitudes and intentions Connected to decision making.  PAGEREF _Toc375913648 \h
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6. Demand factors  PAGEREF _Toc375913649 \h
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A. Politics factors  PAGEREF _Toc375913650 \h
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B. Socioeconomic factors  PAGEREF _Toc375913651 \h
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7. Supply Factors  PAGEREF _Toc375913652 \h
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A. Price, flight frequency, duration and delay  PAGEREF _Toc375913653 \h
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Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY  PAGEREF _Toc375913654 \h
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1. Research strategy in short  PAGEREF _Toc375913655 \h
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2. Goal of the Research and research setting  PAGEREF _Toc375913656 \h
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3. Inductive versus deductive Research  PAGEREF _Toc375913657 \h
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4. Data gathering  PAGEREF _Toc375913658 \h
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5. Quantitative versus qualitative data.  PAGEREF _Toc375913659 \h
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6. Credibility of the research  PAGEREF _Toc375913660 \h
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Chapter 4 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK.  PAGEREF _Toc375913661 \h
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1. Consumer behaviour concepts  PAGEREF _Toc375913662 \h
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2. The airline carriers business  PAGEREF _Toc375913663 \h
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3. Concepts of Traveller Decision-Making  PAGEREF _Toc375913664 \h
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B. Objectives  PAGEREF _Toc375913665 \h
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C. Traveller segmentation  PAGEREF _Toc375913666 \h
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4. Dimension and magnitude of factors influence.  PAGEREF _Toc375913667 \h
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A. Time Vs Price  PAGEREF _Toc375913668 \h
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5. Elements of decision-making  PAGEREF _Toc375913669 \h
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6. Factors influencing travellers’ choice  PAGEREF _Toc375913670 \h
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7. Consumer Decision Making Process  PAGEREF _Toc375913671 \h
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A. Consumer Decision Making Process: Information Search  PAGEREF _Toc375913672 \h
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B. Consumer Decision Making Process: Evaluation of Alternatives  PAGEREF _Toc375913673 \h
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C. Consumer Decision Making Process: Purchase decision  PAGEREF _Toc375913674 \h
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Chapter 5 EMPIRICAL FOUNDING AND ANALYSIS  PAGEREF _Toc375913675 \h
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1. Empirical presentation  PAGEREF _Toc375913676 \h
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A. Presentation of the customer perspective  PAGEREF _Toc375913677 \h
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Chapter 6 CONCLUSION  PAGEREF _Toc375913678 \h
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SCHEDULE  PAGEREF _Toc375913679 \h
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BUDGET  PAGEREF _Toc375913680 \h
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REFERENCES  PAGEREF _Toc375913681 \h
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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION
Background
Never take yes for an answer. It is not because people travel daily with airline companies that mean they are fully satisfied. Currently a huge number of people prefer to travel by plane whether it is for leisure, tourisms or business as this is a time saving way to get from point A to Point B. Nevertheless, it still grows a strong competition with other means of travelling such as the train with the introduction of TGV which makes it possible to link two capitals in few hours and for a reasonable price. Any single attribute of the service offered should then be investigated to unveil how satisfied customers are. So there is a need to improve the use of customer complaints (Plymire, 1991) and one way of achieving this can be through frequent questionnaires addressed to customers. Competition rages nowadays amongst air carriers companies, whether they are low cost or national flag carriers on same routes, making it possible to analyze as a customer in his journey, makes plans on options, prices, and take the best choice possible.
Economic crisis and necessity of a new approach
Recent development in the world is marked with the successive squeeze in economies. People are getting poorer and feel their life standard is deteriorating and since the purchase power is worsening, they are less willing to spend their money unless it is worthy. In such a sensitive environment, airline carriers have no choice but to bring about new methods to ensure they keep their market share in an industry increasingly marked by rude competition. As a consequence, new Marketing orientations have been observed in recent decades embodying new constraints such as the airline companies’ awareness of the customer needs and wants (Seth et al., 2005), the development of customer clubs ( Butscher,1996) has also being of further importance as to retain existing air passengers flying with the company. Thus the assurance of the customer satisfaction became an increasing challenge for airline companies. Airline carriers are becoming more customer oriented, quality and customer satisfaction comes at the head of the company’s relationship with its customers (Seth et al., 2005). Even more, pervasive investigations suggest that service quality affects customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and the firm profitability significantly (Leonard and Sasser, 1982).
Growing competition and Environment change
Moving from an era of national proud and tight regulation in the sky where airline companies were considered as a specific national flag carrier to an openness and market deregulation in 1997 in the European space, there has been an intense competition among players facing the threat lead with the creation of low-cost companies as well as the expansion of existing foreign competitors now growing on foreign soil (Chan, 2000). Because of a spur of a tight competition, consumer’s exigencies have grown continuously leading to a state of high product expectation and price stagnation (Kotler, 2003). Observing a decline in the number of tourist’s air passengers following the 2008 financial crisis and ...giving the economic and financial hurdle people are facing, they are more concerned about low price variable amongst other competing constraints in their ticket buying decision making process ( Giaume and Guillou, 2006). This view is gaining even considerable acceptation as the data shown by many travel bureaus tend to purport in their report. In response to this trend, there has been a profusion of various programs and slogan disguised by air carriers aiming to bring them closer to their target, to retain and attract new customers such as that or that of British Airways “We’ll take more care of you”. Considering the pace with which airline industry is changing, hauling companies are compelled to adjust and to incorporate into their operations new distribution channels with some cogent trends. Undeniably customers are more experienced and exposed to the internet which they use together with all technology tools available to tailor the right information for their actual need.
Problem formulation
Given the importance of this industry and diverse assertions on the consumer consideration in their purchase decision making, we are interested to know what are the most important criteria airlines passengers consider while choosing one airline company than another and the underlying implications these all bring about. This being said, we will devote most part of our work to investigate the overall attributes which customers rely on their decision making process.
Research objective
In this thesis, we are aiming to determine what are the main factors on which air travellers rely upon before deciding which company they want to fly with, analyzing what are those factors and how can they theoretically impact a rational decision making process. We then investigate their sensibility and correlation with competing considerations (price, security, quality of service, access mode, airport check in or out, environmental consideration, and reliability). Throughout the introductory part we mentioned that price constraints might be the key element that shape the choice of travellers, but observing the structure and operations of some big air carriers (Air France, Brussel airlines and...