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The aviation industry is striving hard to provide a safe, secure, and enjoyable travel experience to passengers despite being exposed to extreme risks and prone to frequent disasters. Airline companies are faced with declining passenger confidence in the air transportation system 's reliability and service offerings. The existing literature shows deficiencies in knowledge on passenger confidence in air travel. The passenger confidence to choose the same airline company depends on passenger satisfaction and passenger trust. To remain competitive, service providers must render quality service to their customers. This study identifies some of the service quality dimensions applicable to the aviation industry that can be leveraged by the airline companies to gain competitive advantage. The conceptualized dimensions of service quality pertinent to the present context of airline companies identified in the current study are safety and security, timeliness, pricing, facilities, information communication technology, and sales promotion. The scale measurements for airline service quality that influence passenger confidence in air travel with the mediating effect of service culture have been studied. The conceptual research framework has been proposed and is supported by the extended Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model. The research framework discussed in this study can be applied and customized by any full-service carrier airline for long-term sustainability to nurture passenger load in air travel and thereby increase revenue for airline companies.
Key words: passenger confidence, safety and security, service culture, timeliness
INTRODUCTION
In the past decade and half, the global airline industry has been marred with negative scenarios like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the Iraq and Afghan wars, the 2008 financial crisis, and recurring airline safety lapses, resulting in high barriers for successful operations. An extreme event like the 9/11 attack has a big impact on the risk perceptions of individuals (Wang, Andoh-Baidoo, and Sun 2014). The hijackings of U.S. airplanes on 9/11 decreased consumer confidence in the safety and security of air travel (Brauer and Dunne 2012). After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, many Americans were more reluctant to fly, because they feared being the victims of the next terrorist incident (Clayton, Mustelier, and Maximiliano 2014). Crimes and acts of terrorism committed against the travel and tourism industry instill fear in potential tourists and travelers...