Customer satisfaction in the service sector: a case study of the airline industry

In India, the domestic airline industry is also going through an interesting phase with three‐way competition between Indian Airlines (Government owned), Jet Airways and Air Sahara (private airlines). This paper looks at the role of customer satisfaction in the domestic airlines sector with specific focus on customer segmentation, the linkage between customer satisfaction and future usage and what attributes influences customers choice in airlines. For this study, in addition to the traditional airline satisfaction measures, variables like network of destinations, safety record of the airline and economical air fares have also been considered in determining the factors of customer choice. This paper attempts to provide some insights that would help domestic airlines to better understand the consumer buying behaviour of their customers so that they may develop appropriate marketing strategies in the emerging highly competitive market.