Measuring airline passengers' expected and perceived service quality with servqual: Turkey-Russia comparison

With the rapid increase in technological innovations, people's conscious development and changes have also increased at the same rate. It seems possible to stand out in international competition by increasing the service quality in the aviation sector in Turkey and Russia. In this context, it is important to comparatively evaluate the expected and perceived quality of passengers purchasing airline products in the aviation industry. In today's conditions, where competitive conditions are increasing in every field, competition is a situation that should be emphasized. Quality airline services are associated with the country's development plans, the happiness and well-being of people and the efficiency of businesses. The aim of the research is to determine the quality perceptions perceived and expected by passengers receiving service from airline companies regarding the changes experienced in airline companies after the pandemic in Turkey and Russia. In addition, the research aims to determine the factors that may be effective on these variables through analyzes to determine whether the demographic characteristics and professional characteristics of the employees show statistically significant differences between classes in terms of these variables. In this context, the aim of the study is to determine and compare the expected and perceived service quality of airline passengers in Turkey (Istanbul Ground Airport-İGA) and Russia (Şeremetyevo Airport-Moscow) by measuring the expected and perceived service quality with Servqual. For this purpose, 412 passengers receiving flight services from these airports were reached by convenience sampling with relational survey model on a voluntary basis. With the findings obtained, it was determined that the arithmetic mean of Expected Quality of Turkish airline passengers was (x̄=3,92) while Perceived Quality was (x̄=3,81) and the perception of airline product service of passengers was low quality (x̄=-0,10). With the findings obtained, it was determined that while the arithmetic mean of Expected Quality of Russian airline passengers was (x̄=4,31), Perceived Quality was (x̄=3,98) and passengers' perception of airline product service was low quality (x̄=-0,32).