Effects of airline service quality on airline image and passengers’ loyalty: findings from ark airnigeria passengers

This paper investigates how individual dimensions of Arik airline service quality determines airline image and passengers’ loyalty to the airline. To investigate the effects of individual dimensions of airline service quality, data was collected from a total of 600 respondents by the administration of a well structured questionnaire based on the SERVQUAL scale to determine their level of satisfaction on the attributes of airline service quality. Factor analysis was carried out on the data collect and three major service quality dimensions were factored out as variables to be used. Pearson correlation coefficient was determine to ascertain the significant relationship between the service quality dimensions and the airline image. Also a relationship was furher determined between the airline image and the passengers loyalty to the airline. Result from the analysis proved that there existed a strong statististically significant relationship between the service quality variables and the airline image, indicating that the quality the service the airline offers has a positive relationship with the airline image and the airline image also has a positive relationship with the passengers repeat patronage. Airline managers were thus advised to improve on the quality of service rendered to passengers since the study showed that one of the determinants of the airline image and the airline image also determines the passengers choice of repeat patronage.