Service quality of flight schools in Türkiye from the viewpoint of cadet pilots

Civil air transportation continues to develop rapidly. With this development, the need for qualified human resources has emerged. Flight schools are at the forefront of the institutions where the crews start their aviation training and where cockpit employment is provided. Although flight schools have to meet aviation standards, there is no specific standard for service quality. Aim of this study is to evaluate service quality of flight schools from the cadet 'pilots' point of view and to investigate whether having another flight school experience makes any difference in terms of evaluating service quality of these flight schools. Quantitative research was carried out with the participation of 154 cadet pilots graduated from flight schools or continuing flight training in these flight schools of Türkiye. In this context, a questionnaire consisting of demographic information and service quality parts were applied to the participants. The data collected by the questionnaire were analysed with the SPSS. According to the comparison of flight schools, there is a significant difference. The average score of participants from TAFA is higher than other flight schools. Although TAFA has the highest score, other flight schools are above the average score. Although having another flight school experience does not show a significant difference for overall servqual scores, tangible dimensions of service quality score experiencing second flight school is lower than who has no second flight school experience. Tangible dimensions evaluations include modern aircrafts, appealing physical facilities, equipment and employees.