Effect of passenger comfort and services on the company business and financial performance of airlines

Top 100 Airlines of the year of 2015 by World Airline Awards, which evaluated airlines in the civil aviation sector by applying 19,2 million surveys in the period of 2015/2016, forms the sample of this study. The 20 selected airline companies were evaluated using Analytic Hierarchy Process method under two main parameters. The first of these parameters is service parameter is evaluated under seat width, seat pitch, free checked baggage, baggage weight and entertainment factors; while performance which is the second main parameter is studied under the Available Seat Kilometers (ASK), Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK), Cost Per Available Seat Kilometers (CASK), Revenue Per Available Seat Kilometers (RASK), Load Factor which is ratio of RPK to ASK and the revenue/cost balance factor which is ratio of RASK to CASK. As a result of this evaluation, effects of the correlation between service and performance parameters to the airline's balance has been calculated. With the analysis based on numerical values rather than subjective ones, importance of service and performance parameters on airline's profit/loss balance uncovered. Keywords: Analytic Hierarchy Process, Service-comfort parameters, Performance parameters, Skytrax, Weighted average analysis