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1. Introduction
Aviation is generally perceived as a safe industry. The probability that an airplane will crash due to a terrorist attack is considered very low[1]. Nevertheless, terrorist incidents in airports and on airplanes have recently received attention in the international media. For example, media reports indicated that the 2016 crash of an EgyptAir flight was due to a bomb[2]. Other examples include reports about the 2016 terrorist attack at Istanbul airport[3] and about the two missiles fired at an Arkia airplane flying out of Mombasa, Kenya in November 2002[4]. These reports have increased people’s awareness of the risk terrorism poses to flying and the need for airline security measures.
Indeed, the September 11, 2001 terror attacks and the accompanying hijackings of the US airplanes decreased consumer trust in the safety and security of air travel (Brauer and Dunne, 2012; Wang et al., 2014). Therefore, as the events of September 11, safety and security have become a major concern faced by airlines. After terrorists hijacked several planes and crashed them into buildings with all the passengers aboard, the airlines were forced to change their security checking system and institute specific measures to prevent such actions from recurring. Among these measures are the use of air marshals and the locking of cockpit doors during flights (Fox, 2014; Stewart and Mueller, 2008). Airline safety criteria are determined by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the IATA Operational Safety Audit and the Federal Aviation Administration. According to airlineratings.com, airline safety ratings are based on comprehensive holistic safety analysis of factors that impact safety (Jeeradist et al., 2016).
Despite the importance of safety and security issues, only a few existing studies have examined the impact of safety and security risks on travelers’ aviation choices (Fleischer et al., 2015; Koo et al., 2016), while even fewer have examined travelers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for safe and secure flights (Molin et al., 2017). In addition, there is a lacuna in the existing literature with respect to the relationship between travelers’ attitudes toward aviation security, emotions evoked by terrorist incidents and travelers’ WTP to fly on an airline with a high level of security. The current study fills this void.
In the summer of 2014, thousands of missiles...