An integrated approach to the evaluation of e-service quality in airline companies

Nowadays, as a result of technological developments, information technology has deeply affected the activities of many sectors and has begun to support these sectors as a marketing tool. The air transport sector is undoubtedly one of these sectors. It is known that ticket sales are largely carried out over the internet in the air transport industry where passengers are basically transported from one place to another. In this point as well as in other services, the concept of quality (e-service) also stands out as an important competition tool in the services offered over the internet. As a matter of fact, e-service quality affects customer satisfaction and loyalty positively, which is decisive on the success of airline companies. In this context, it is aimed to determine the importance levels of the factors affecting the quality of e-services offered in the air transport sector by using integrated methods in the study and to rank the national airline companies according to their e-service quality performances. For this purpose, firstly, the factors affecting the quality of e-service were obtained as a result of the literature survey. A hierarchical model was established with the elements obtained and the importance of the factors affecting the quality of e-service as a result of expert opinions were determined using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). In the next phase of the study, the data obtained as a result of the questionnaire applied to 395 passengers at International Antalya Airport were analyzed using the ARAS method and ranked according to the performances of airlines. According to the results obtained; it has been determined that the most important factor that has an effect on e-service quality is reliability and Atlasglobal has the highest e-service quality performance.