Search Results (42)

To reduce the environmental impact of aviation, airlines are offering Voluntary Carbon Offset (VCO) programs and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) contributions, which are rarely purchased by consumers. This quantitative survey study examines how passengers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for VCOs and SAF differs across ticket price levels and communication contexts. Findings indicate that, at higher ticket prices, lower stated WTP for carbon offsetting was observed when ticket price increases were presented within a more detailed communication context. Differences in communication context were not significantly associated with stated WTP for SAF, while SAF was indicated as a preferred mitigation strategy than VCOs. This study highlights the complexity of consumer decision-making regarding voluntary sustainable initiatives in aviation. Full article

The aviation industry faces increasing pressure to reduce its environmental footprint, prompting airlines to adopt green marketing practices that align with sustainability goals. Grounded in the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), this study investigates the influence of green marketing on consumers’ repurchase intentions, with electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) as a mediating factor. An online survey was conducted among 390 airline passengers in Turkey, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that green marketing significantly enhances both e-WOM and repurchase intention. Additionally, information quality and credibility exert significant effects on e-WOM and make a modest direct contribution to repurchase intention. While e-WOM is positively associated with repurchase intention, its mediating role in the relationship between green marketing and repurchase intention is not statistically supported. These findings suggest that e-WOM functions as a reinforcing rather than a transmitting mechanism linking green marketing to repurchase intention. The model explains 68.9% of the variance in repurchase intention and 18.9% in e-WOM. The study contributes by integrating green marketing, e-WOM, and information characteristics within an ELM-based framework for the airline context, offering actionable insights for sustainability-oriented marketing strategies. Full article

Firms increasingly develop dynamic pricing policies to maximize revenue for perishable products with limited inventory over a finite selling horizon. This trend is enabled by the growing availability of sales data and is observed across industries such as airlines, hotels, cruise lines, fashion, and seasonal retail. Given customer heterogeneity, firms may further adopt discriminatory pricing across customer groups. However, excessive price disparities can trigger legal risks and consumer backlash, motivating price fairness constraints that bound inter-group price differences in each selling period. We formulate this problem as an action-constrained Markov decision process (ACMDP) with unknown demand functions and adopt a model-free deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework. However, standard DRL algorithms for unconstrained MDPs cannot directly handle these fairness constraints. Therefore, we introduce an optimization-based shielding mechanism. From the DRL pricing agent’s perspective, this mechanism converts the ACMDP into a shield-induced unconstrained MDP. Meanwhile, it guarantees constraint satisfaction for all executed prices. Building on this framework, we propose the Shield Soft Actor-Critic (Shield-SAC) algorithm. This is the first Shield-SAC method for fairness-aware pricing under instantaneous and hard price fairness constraints. We test it in two simulated markets of different scales and validate that Shield-SAC achieves strong revenue performance while consistently enforcing the price fairness constraints during both training and deployment. Full article

To meet the sustainable development goals of the aviation industry, promoting digitalized all-electric aircraft (AEA) is a critical path. However, during the dynamic popularization process of digitalized AEA, the interests among manufacturers, airlines, and governments vary, coupled with a notable time delay in digitalized technological R&D and market promotion. Therefore, this study establishes differential game models for popularizing AEA and investigates dynamic optimal strategies of potential benefits, levels of digitalized R&D, consumer preferences, and market demand, under three game modes: Nash non-cooperative, cost-sharing, and collaborative cooperation. The research finds that: (1) When the promotion cost of AEA is lower than a certain threshold, the cost-sharing model can effectively enhance digital R&D. (2) In the case of ignoring time lag, the initial value of the battery life level and consumer preference becomes the decisive factor that significantly affects its dynamic evolution trajectory. Under the cost-sharing model, the battery life level and consumer preference reached 107.13 and 15.26, respectively. This is significantly higher than the collaborative model and the NASH non-cooperative model. (3) When the delay effect exceeds the thresholds of 4.58 and 5.49, respectively, the Nash non-cooperative model becomes the most effective promotion model. This paper provides an important decision-making reference for promoting the digital transformation and sustainable development of the aviation industry. Full article

In the era of digital interconnectivity, user-generated reviews on platforms such as TripAdvisor have become a valuable source of social feedback, reflecting collective experiences and perceptions of airline services. However, aggregating such feedback presents several challenges: evaluations are typically expressed using linguistic ordinal scales, are subjective, often incomplete, and influenced by opinion dynamics within social networks. To effectively deal with these complexities and extract meaningful insights, this study proposes an information-driven decision-making framework that integrates Fuzzy Belief Structures with the TOPSIS method. To handle the uncertainty and imprecision of linguistic ratings, user opinions are modeled as fuzzy belief distributions over satisfaction levels. Rankings are then derived using TOPSIS by comparing each airline’s aggregated profile to ideal satisfaction benchmarks via a belief-based distance measure. This framework presents a novel solution for measuring synthetic satisfaction in complex social feedback systems, thereby contributing to the understanding of information flow, belief aggregation, and emergent order in digital opinion networks. The methodology is demonstrated using a real-world dataset of TripAdvisor airline reviews, providing a robust and interpretable benchmark for service quality. Moreover, this study applies Shannon entropy to classify and interpret the consistency of customer satisfaction ratings among Star Alliance airlines. The results confirm the stability of the Airline Satisfaction Index (ASI), with extremely high correlations among the five rankings generated using different fuzzy utility function models. The methodology reveals that airlines such as Singapore Airlines, ANA, EVA Air, and Air New Zealand consistently achieve high satisfaction scores across all fuzzy model configurations, highlighting their strong and stable performance regardless of model variation. These airlines also show both low entropy and high average scores, confirming their consistent excellence. Full article

We investigate how the factors influencing aircraft utilization have changed during and post-Pandemic depending on the business model before. We classify the Pandemic into three periods (pre-, during and post- Pandemic) and the business models into three types (Total, FSC and LCC). For each group, we analyze the importance of factors using the SHAP and Random Forest models. Through group-difference tests on factor importance, we examine whether there are significant differences across the three periods and business models. According to the findings of the ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) and the Kruskal–Wallis assay, the importance of factors influencing aircraft utilization has changed across all business models over the three periods. Pre-Pandemic, a coincident index and a consumer price index were the principal factors. However, the exchange rate (KRW/EUR) gained significant importance during the Pandemic. This suggests that the Pandemic’s impact on the aviation industry was not limited to reduced demand but was also associated with changes in the importance of exchange rates and key business indicators for airline operations. Pre-Pandemic, there were significant differences among the business model groups. However, no meaningful differences were observed during and post-Pandemic. In other words, it seems that the leading indexes were closely interconnected pre-Pandemic, whereas lagging indexes and exchange rate became closely interconnected afterward. A group-difference test confirmed that no differences were observed among the business models, but differences were evident when considering the groups in their entirety. We presented the implications for changes in airline decision-making to understand changes in the aviation industry caused by the Pandemic, by identifying how the factors influencing aircraft utilization were altered. Full article

Modern aviation is one of the main consumers of petroleum-based fuels, consuming nearly 100 million gallons of fuel per year, and this consumption continues to grow. On the other hand, airlines have committed to achieving net-zero carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in the industry by 2050. Fulfilling this commitment necessitates the investigation of new and the optimization of existing processes for the production of alternative, renewable, and environmentally safe feedstocks. This article was prepared as part of the research project “Development of Technological Solutions for Obtaining Composite Motor Fuels from Secondary Raw Materials to Enhance Energy Security”. Full article

In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital connectivity, airlines have integrated these advancements as indispensable tools for a seamless consumer experience. However, digitisation has increased the scope of risk in the cyber realm. Limited studies have systematically investigated cybersecurity risks in the airline industry. In this context, we propose a novel questionnaire model to investigate consumers’ perceptions regarding the cybersecurity of airlines. Data were collected from 470 Chinese participants in Nanjing City. The analytical approach encompassed a range of statistical techniques, including descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, difference analysis, and correlation. The constructs based on Maddux’s Protective Motivation Theory and Becker’s Health Belief Model were reliable, indicating the suitability of the proposed scales for further research. The results indicate that gender significantly influences passengers’ perceptions of airline cybersecurity, leading to variations in their awareness and response to cybersecurity threats. Additionally, occupation affects passengers’ information protection behaviour and security awareness. On the other hand, factors such as age, education level, and Frequent Flyer Program participation have minimal impact on passengers’ cybersecurity perceptions. Based on questionnaire content and data analysis, we propose three recommendations for airlines to enhance consumer cybersecurity perception. First, airlines should provide personalised network security services tailored to different occupations and genders. Second, they should engage in regular activities to disseminate knowledge and notices related to network security, thereby increasing passengers’ attention to cybersecurity. Third, increased resources should be allocated to cybersecurity to establish a safer cyber environment. This study aims to improve the quality of transportation policy and bridge the gap between theory and practice in addressing cybersecurity risks in the aviation sector. Full article

Fuel burn during the actual route flown is an important indicator of aircraft operational efficiency. This study aims to assess and systematically evaluate the method for fuel consumed during flights using data from the automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B), European reanalysis (ERA5) meteorological dataset, and BADA 3 performance. A literature background and comprehensive methodology are provided for fuel estimation using track data. The airborne part of the trajectory was used to estimate the total trip fuel consumed during several flights of a commercial airliner. The calculated fuel burn is compared with measured fuel consumption from the flight data recorder (FDR). The results show that fuel consumption for the entire airborne part of the trajectory can be estimated with an average error of 1.2% and with a standard deviation of 1.3%. Detailed results of fuel burn for individual flight phases, from the initial climb to the approach, are also presented. In addition, this paper also discusses the sources of errors and the potential applications of the method for network operations and environmental monitoring. Full article

As the aviation industry embraces the carbon trading market, the competition between full-service carriers and low-cost carriers in ticket pricing is becoming more complicated and worth studying. To this end, we introduce carbon trading into game theoretical models under different market power structures and use real data from China Eastern Airlines and Spring Airlines on the route from Sanya to Shanghai to study this problem. This differs from the existing literature as empirical research is mainly used in this field. Our main results show that the disparity in market power (Stackelberg game) alleviates competition intensity under carbon trading and leads to higher equilibrium prices than in the Nash game model. Meanwhile, even when the two airlines have similar market power, Spring Airlines still has incentives to voluntarily act as a follower of China Eastern Airlines instead of maintaining equal market power with China Eastern Airlines. Under mild regulation, the uplift of carbon prices promotes higher equilibrium prices and supports larger profits. For the sake of consumer welfare, this suggests that the regulation department should impose stricter regulations and grant subsidies to motivate the airlines to mitigate emissions by introducing clean technologies. Full article

The applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) have significantly empowered the safety and operational efficiency within the aviation sector for safer and more efficient operations. Airlines derive informed decisions to enhance operational efficiency and strategic planning through extensive contextual analysis of customer reviews and feedback from social media, such as Twitter and Facebook. However, this form of analytical endeavor is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Extensive studies have investigated NLP algorithms for sentiment analysis based on textual customer feedback, thereby underscoring the necessity for an in-depth investigation of transformer architecture-based NLP models. In this study, we conducted an exploration of the large language model BERT and three of its derivatives using an airline sentiment tweet dataset for downstream tasks. We further honed this fine-tuning by adjusting the hyperparameters, thus improving the model’s consistency and precision of outcomes. With RoBERTa distinctly emerging as the most precise and overall effective model in both the binary (96.97%) and tri-class (86.89%) sentiment classification tasks and persisting in outperforming others in the balanced dataset for tri-class sentiment classification, our results validate the BERT models’ application in analyzing airline industry customer sentiment. In addition, this study identifies the scope for improvement in future studies, such as investigating more systematic and balanced datasets, applying other large language models, and using novel fine-tuning approaches. Our study serves as a pivotal benchmark for future exploration in customer sentiment analysis, with implications that extend from the airline industry to broader transportation sectors, where customer feedback plays a crucial role. Full article

Despite an increased emphasis on improvement in airline service quality concerning consumer behavior, such as passenger repurchasing as a result of their behavioral intention over the last several decades, there is still much less concern with the nature of airline service quality than should exist in the so-called “logistics service quality” and less concern with examining the specific behavioral intention preceding repurchasing behavior together with the theory of planned behavior. As such, this study aims to explore these issues, along with the psychological factors of the theory of planned behavior, that can lead to repurchasing behavior via word-of-mouth intention (WOMI). With an online survey of 383 respondents experienced with flying, the results reveal that the logistics service quality and each determinant in the theory positively influence a passenger’s repurchasing behavior through WOMI. Accordingly, service marketers can implement service design and apply integrated marketing communication by learning from repurchasing behavior that was formed by the given factors to retain their existing customers. Moreover, this study is the first to empirically and explicitly validate dimensions of airline services through the lens of logistics that are deemed fit with the nature of the airlines. It advances the understanding of theory approaching and connects what has hampered its advancement in a body of knowledge, simultaneously in a context of airline context where it should not be relegated to transportation and consumer and service orientation. Full article

Consumers’ increased awareness of social and environmental issues encourages airlines to implement corporate social responsibility (CSR); however, the effectiveness of CSR according to airline type remains unclear. This study examines the roles of CSR and service quality in enhancing passengers’ brand love in the airline industry and explores the moderating role of airline type on the CSR–brand love and service quality–brand love relationships. To test the theoretical model, we conducted a web-based survey with 426 participants who were knowledgeable about the CSR activities of the airline companies that they had recently used. Based on the survey responses, the structural equation modeling results revealed the salient roles of both CSR and service quality in creating passengers’ brand love, which, in turn, significantly contributed to positive word of mouth. Moreover, airline type significantly moderated the effect of airlines’ CSR on brand love. Based on these findings, we provide academic implications and practical strategies by airline type. Full article

Monitoring customer satisfaction in the airline service industry is critical for improving service quality and meeting consumer expectations. Modern and comprehensive quality of service measurement tools offer firms critical information about how consumers perceive quality and their service quality expectations. It is vital to assess service quality in airline transportation, which is becoming more popular in comparison to other modes of transportation, resulting in increased competition. Businesses should know their clients well and make adjustments by properly analyzing their expectations if they want to compete in the market and enhance the quality of their services. As a consequence of this, we decided to utilize a model called the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) in order to determine how passengers in Saudi Arabia evaluate the level of service that is offered by airlines. Using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach to model the five SERVQUAL dimensions and 22 sub-criteria, the purpose of the study effort was to determine the criteria for improving airline services. For the purpose of the study, the service from three different airlines was chosen and assessed based on their overall quality performance. Systematically, the AHP-based approach is presented for rating the airlines according to the Saudi aviation services. According to the observations, airlines should focus more on reliability, assurance, responsiveness, and empathy and less on tangibles. The sub-criteria also state that the airlines’ top aim should be to deliver accurate services on the first try. According to the AHP analysis, Saudi Airlines ranked first, followed by flynas and then flydeal. The findings of this study have consequences for decisions about the effective monitoring of the total airline system in order to enhance the delivery of high-quality services that would increase customers’ pleasure, which is the aim of airline services. Full article

The irregular lifestyle of airline crew members, wide/adverse job-related exposures, and the impact of temporary hypoxia on gut microbiota well-being have increased concern about the daily recommended dose of certain nutrients among flight crew. The aim of this study was to determine if daily consumption of a SYNBIO^® probiotics–elderberry extract supplement (ACTIVE) may contribute to the well-being of flight attendants. Forty healthy crew members enrolled in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study consumed one ACTIVE capsule/day or placebo for 30 days. Bowel well-being, health-related quality of life, and gastrointestinal tolerance were assessed by validated questionnaires. Saliva and fecal samples were analyzed to determine secretory immunoglobulin-A (sIgA) levels and to characterize gut microbiota composition, respectively. ACTIVE subjects presented a physiological improvement and a statistically significant higher Psychological General Well-Being Index (PGWBI) global score compared to PLACEBO subjects. The ACTIVE subjects showed significantly increased levels of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria compared to the PLACEBO group, while a significant increase in lactobacilli and a significant reduction in Enterobacteriaceae were registered when compared with the beginning of supplementation, confirming the persistence of probiotics in the gastrointestinal tract and the direct antagonism and competitive exclusion effects. Additionally, sIgA levels were significantly higher in the ACTIVE group compared to the baseline and to the PLACEBO group at the end of supplementation. The ACTIVE supplementation might be beneficial to airline crew members, improving their physiological state, their immune defenses, and the strength and efficiency of their gastrointestinal tract when responding to stressful conditions. Full article