The primary objective of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between airline service quality, passenger satisfaction and passenger loyalty. This study identifies the main factors of airline service quality, passenger satisfaction and passenger loyalty and proposes a model examining the directional relationship among these three constructs. It is based on an empirical investigation of the data collected from 500 passengers with Royal Jordanian (RJ) airline during July and August 1996. The data are analysed using a variety of statistical techniques. Factor analysis is used to identify the main factors of airline service quality and passenger loyalty. The segmentation of airline passengers according to their loyalty levels and psychographic characteristics is performed using cluster analysis techniques. LISREL 8 and path analysis techniques are used to investigate the relationships among the three constructs namely: service quality, passenger satisfaction and passenger loyalty. The key findings of the study indicate that overall service quality is highly related to both passenger satisfaction and loyalty. The relationship between passenger satisfaction and loyalty toward a specific airline is less clear An approach to the identification of the dimensions (factors) of airline services based on the stages of providing services to passengers is introduced and a loyalty measure, covering both attitudinal and behavioural aspects of loyalty, is developed and used to examine the applicability of loyalty level in determining segments in the air passenger industry. The contributions of this study to the existing literature in services marketing and consumer behaviour is assessed together with the contributions made to the air passenger industry itself. The limitations of the study are discussed and the potential for future research in the area is indicated.

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The globalisation and deregulation in the air transport industry has resulted in a rapid and massive increase in competition. As a consequence, major airlines around the world have responded by forming strategic global alliances in order to be able to compete effectively on a global basis. Airline brand managers of the airlines participating in these alliances now have the additional responsibility to undertake a task that would have seemed almost impossible a few years before; to promote under a single global brand, very distinctive airline brands. This is further complicated with the subdivision of brand responsibility between increasing numbers of individual airline brand managers with varying degrees of autonomy. Although there have been many studies in identifying different forms of impact that airline alliances have on their members, none of them was in terms of branding. This research investigates the impacts of the individual airline brands of airlines that participate in the global alliances and their alliance brands. In order to achieve this aim, the alliances’ and airlinemembers’ branding was initially analysed to identify branding consistencies within each global alliance. The second step was to carry out a survey of the airlines’ marketing departments to identify the airlines’ points of view on the issue. Finally, a survey of passengers identifies their perspective. By comparing the airlines’ points of view on their alliance branding (alliance branding strategy) with their websites’ marketing (branding strategy implementation) and the passengers’ point of view (branding outcome), shortfalls in the alliance branding processes are identified. Moreover, the SERVQUAL model is modified and applied for the airline passenger survey and by carrying out a factor analysis of the survey results, it is identified that the original five dimensions that the items included in the model are designed to correlate with each other are not applicable in the airline industry, but instead the same items are better correlated into four new factors. The key findings of this research are that airline passengers have different service quality expectations among the airlines participating in the same alliances and that their expectations are influenced by the airline that they fly with most regularly. This results in high quality airlines being negatively affected by their lower quality alliance partners.

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As the airline industry continues to rapidly expand and evolve, today's airlines leaders are faced with the challenge of balancing long term strategies with short term solutions. Customer satisfaction has become significantly important for airline operations and as a result service quality has also gained paramount importance in this sector. Lean's customer-focused theme for improving service quality has gained a momentum in services, however, Lean deployment within the airline service sector is generally a long way behind manufacturing and health services. These factors have motivated research into investigating Lean phenomena within a leading UK airline company. For quantitative and qualitative data analysis, 9 cases were collected from 3 internal departments of the airline company, 35 semi-structured interviews were held, and 220 survey questionnaires were circulated of which 180 were returned. Within-case and cross-case analysis techniques were applied and, to develop a framework and 5 key relationships were identified. This study’s contribution is in the area of Quality Management as it: (a) highlights the role of ‘customer value’ and ‘engagement value’ in the domain of technical and functional service quality attributes; (b) maps cost-quality-delivery relationships through linking Lean improvements to its results; and (c) constructs an ‘outcome-driven’ framework from the findings. Ultimately, this research provides knowledge and understanding of how an airline company deploys Lean as business strategy to improve their service quality. The novelty of the research in terms of deliverables is two-fold: firstly, it establishes framework linking Lean improvement initiatives to its results, which extends to the sustainability, commitment, future profitability and market share characteristics of improvement results; and secondly, it provides a tool, which could assist key decision makers in evaluating the results of the Lean initiative to provide better understanding for Lean deployment. Key words: Lean services; business improvement strategy; service quality improvements; quality management; airline services; customer satisfaction; employee satisfaction.