Airline Passengers' Satisfaction with Airports

Airports are places where people have the potential to experience either satisfaction or frustration, and marketing and tourism scholars have argued that customer satisfaction is one of the primary goals of airports. However, few studies have systemically analyzed the service quality and efficiency of airports, or examined customer satisfaction with airport facilities. While airline passengers' expectations of airport service quality have been examined, there are few studies focusing on both their expectations and desires regarding airport services. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, no available studies have analyzed passengers' expectations and desires on the basis of the desires congruency model. This study attempted to define tourists' desires and expectations congruency as well as their satisfaction with their entire airport experiences.

A total of 262 airline passengers in Incheon International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport participated in the study. Six hypotheses were tested with data collected from a survey of the airline passengers with the use of descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling. Most relationships among latent variables were found to be in accordance with previous studies. Furthermore, the results of the current study implied that the desires congruency model could be applied to the satisfaction formation of airline passengers. Practical recommendations are presented for the airport managers to enhance airport services.