AIRPORT RESEARCH

The Airlines’ Point of View as a

New Approach to Measuring the
Quality of Service at Airports
This article is to provide airport professionals and
those who do not have experience in the field of
service quality at airports with information on a new
approach to measuring quality from the airlines’
point of view. This is an entirely new approach
because approaches thus far have been from the
customers’ point of view. This new approach has
been tested at Bratislava Airport in Slovakia. Full
research results will be published at a later time.
Part of the information used in this article has been
provided by the University of Zilina. Other important
information has been obtained through representa-
Courtesy Milan Rastislav Štefánik Bratislava Airport.
tives of the Bratislava Airport, Air Slovakia, Air
Traffic Services of Slovakia, Czech Airlines, Sky Europe Airlines, and the former Slovak Airlines.

By Benedikt Badanik

Customers of airports can be divided into
five main groups: 1) airlines; 2) passengers;
3) concessionaires; 4) visitors, personnel,
and 5) non-travellers [1]. Passengers make
up the largest group of all, but airlines some-
times consider them as their customers, and
are therefore only considered as indirect
customers of the airport. But the airlines can
be considered as the primary customer of
the airport: the major facilities (runways,
taxiways, apron, terminal facilities…) have
been built to be used by the airlines. They
pay for the services provided. They also use
and pay for the office space and technical
facilities required for their staff and opera-
tions.
Therefore, the aim of the article is to intro-
duce a new point of view; the airline’s point
of view as a new approach to measuring the
quality of service at airports.
Current Approach to Measuring
Service Quality at Airports:
Passenger’ Point of View
An airport is perceived as a key point in the
air transport system. The efficiency and
speed of airport processes are critical. This
is usually summed up with the term ’facili-
Figure. 1: Specific areas of research (related
tation’, i.e. providing free and unimpeded to quality of service from airlines’ point of
passage to aircraft, passengers, freight and view)
mail, including all clearance and handling
processes. One of the facets of facilitation is
the quality of service. In order to satisfy the
airport’s customers, it is important to pro-
vide the best service possible, according to
customer needs. And in order to verify that
the desired service quality has been
achieved, it needs to be measured, evaluat-
ed and also anticipated.
ACI quality of service survey uses two
kinds of measurement with regard to quali-
ty of service. Objective measurement,
which is provided by the measurement of
defined criteria, with indicators that help to
achieve objective measurements (an objec-
tive criterion is one that is measured objec-
tively, e.g. a time measurement) and subjec-
tive measurements, which depends on the
subjective value attributed to quality of serv-
ice by passengers (given by surveys, com-
ment cards, or complaints) [1].
Example of objective service quality crite-
ria. Item: Aircraft turn-around process.
Example of subjective service quality crite-
ria:
Item: Overall customer satisfaction at the
airport/overall attractiveness/convenience
of airport/overall quality of service Based
upon ACI quality of service survey (realized
by ACI world headquarters Geneva –
Switzerland in 1998), 95 percent of objec-
tive criteria and more than 99 percent of
subjective criteria used to measure quality
of service at airports worldwide is related to
passengers.
There are only a few services (related to air-
lines) that are used as criteria for measuring
quality. These services can be the following:
 offices and desks (or generally surface
areas)
 terminal resources: check-in desks and
baggage belts, gate allocation (aircraft
stands: at contact or remote)
 information technologies and telecom-
munications
 ground-handling services
 movement areas (runways and apron
areas)
 technical facilities and services

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 signage and guidance, and way-finding
 announcements
 information (including flight information)
 comfort (architecture, volumes, temper-
ature, visual environment, smoking areas)
 provision of washrooms and toilets
 cleanliness
 staff courtesy, empathy, contact, accura-
cy (appropriate staff) and efficiency capacity
 “walking” times (connecting flight flow,
embarkation or disembarkation flow)
 availability of lifts, escalators, moving
walkways, people-movers, etc.
 provision for the disabled
 special services (business lounge, VIP,
facilities for religious observance, emer-
gency medical services, etc.) Figure 3: Level of satisfaction with the quality of service at Airport Bratislava (mea-
sured by pilots)
As indicated before, most of the airports Air Slovakia. Fourteen questionnaires had
around the world currently apply a passen- to be rejected due to incompleteness or dis-
ger approach when measuring service qual- crepancies.
ity. This article, however, deals with a new
approach to measuring quality of service, Different pilots (flying for various airlines)
which is from the airlines’ point of view. measure the quality of service at Airport
We were not able to define proper objective Bratislava differently. Figure 3 shows sig-
criteria for all the partners. That is why there nificant difference between their evalua-
New Approach to Measuring Service are only subjective criteria used in the ques-
Quality at Airports: Airlines’ Point of tions. The level of pilots’ satisfaction with
tionnaire. the services ranged from 1.8 to 3.6.
View
The new approach means that data related According to figure 4, visual impression of
to service quality at airports will not be
Quality of Service at Airport Airport Bratislava obtained the highest
obtained from passengers, but from pilots –
Bratislava Research Facts and Figures quality marks, whereas the staff’s knowl-
Quality of service at Airport Bratislava was edge of English was rated as insufficient.
first representatives of airlines. Due to the measured by 56 pilots. Their ages ranged
fact that the previous list of services does not from 23 to 58 years and the number of their
include the areas of services, quality of Independence
individual total flight hours ranged from Regarding Age of Pilots and Security
which can easily be measured (subjectively) 500 to 20,000. These pilots represented
by pilots, it is needed to specify those areas Service at Airport Bratislava
three of the five biggest airlines (according At the start of this survey, we suspected that
(see Fig.1). Service quality at airports will to number of passengers transported in
be measured from the airlines’ point of the oldest pilots (between 50 and 58 years of
2006 and first quarter of 2007) at Airport age in our case) were stricter in terms of
view. This part of the research has been con- Bratislava (as shown in the Fig. 5) – Sky
ducted with support from several research measuring quality of security service at
Europe Airlines, former Slovak Airlines and Airport Bratislava. We decided to test this
partners: Airport Bratislava, Air Slovakia,
Air Traffic Services of the Slovak Republic,
Czech Airlines, Sky Europe Airlines and
former Slovak Airlines.

Questionnaire Draft
First, the areas of research (related to meas-
uring service quality at airports from the air-
lines’ point of view) have been selected.
Then, a draft questionnaire related to these
specific areas was set up (Fig. 2 below). A
simple questionnaire is the best way of col-
lecting data. Its main advantage compared
to other ways of collecting data is its trans-
parency. This feature makes it possible that
the collected data can be used more easily in
the future. Next, four levels of satisfaction
(quality marks) with quality of service have
been determined.
Figure 4: Best and worst service at Airport Bratislava according to pilots’ measurement

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theory before we would decide whether to
take their answers into account or not. We
wished to test the null hypothesis that the
age of pilots and their answers were inde-
pendent [5]. The results of this survey are
given in table 1. For example, a total of 3
pilots have measured security as very poor,
out of a grand total of 42 pilots included in
the survey. On the other hand, a total of 3
pilots have measured security as very good.
We also needed to decide what the value in
each cell would have been, if the null
hypothesis had been true, i.e. if there had
been no relationship between the pilots’
answers and their age. We have calculated
these values from the marginal totals of
table 1, to give a proportional distribution of
values throughout the table. These expected
values can be found in the contingency table 2.
If, say, the 3 oldest pilots (between 50 to 58
years of age in our case) were no stricter or
less strict than the other younger pilots, we
would expect the number of the oldest pilots
with the answer “very poor” to be 0.21. The
test statistic we need to calculate for this
problem is the chi-square value. First, calcu-
lation of the expected value of each cell was
made (Tab. 2), then the squared differences
between the observed and expected values
were added up and divided by the expected
value, for each cell. According to this
methodology, chi-square value is
= 3.816. The number of degrees of freedom
associated with a given contingency table
(Tab. 2) is given by: v=(4-1)•(4-1)=9 .
From tables, the critical value of for
nine degrees of freedom is:
= 19. Chi-square value we have calculated
is smaller than 19. That is why we accept
the null hypothesis at the 5 percent level of
Table 1: Results of the survey
Table 2: Contingency table
e-zine edition, Issue 38
significance. Age of pilots and their answers
are thus independent.
Conclusions
The fast growth of passengers transported
that is presently seen at Airport Bratislava
puts it into a stronger position on the ’small
regional airports’ market in Europe.
Average growth of passengers transported
is more than 30 percent annually. Airport
Bratislava will therefore face increasing
demand for quality of service in the near
future. More low-cost carriers will consider
Airport Bratislava as a great hub and gate to
Eastern Europe.
Figure 5: Percentage share of total PAX
If Airport Bratislava wants to remain attrac- transported at Airport Bratislava (2006, first
tive for low-cost carriers, it will need to quarter 2007, 2, 3 million. PAX)
improve most of its services and first of all, FORUM 2nd. WINTER SERVICE WORK-
its security and safety (as research results SHOP PAPER, Budapest 1993
show). Quality of service needs to be meas- [4] BADÁNIK, Benedikt: Aspekty
ured periodically. The focal point needs to kvality v prevádzke letísk, Písomná práca k diz-
be the airlines’ needs and expectations. ertačnej skúške Žilinská univerzita v Žiline, f
PEDaS KLD. Zilina 2002
[5] COOK, Andrew: Marketing &
The methodology described should be the
Market Research for Air Transport, Workshop,
handbook to perform measuring service at 28 February 2007, University of Westminster,
Airport Bratislava for more airlines. London, United Kingdom, 5. Example case
According to that methodology, compari- studies
son between Airport Bratislava and similar [6] DOGANIS, Rigs: The airport busi-
airports would be recommended. ness., 1992, ISBN 0-415-08117-3
[7] FRANCIS, Graham,
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[8] GRAHAM, Anne: Managing
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About the Author
Benedikt Badanik was a Member of the Slovak
Airport Authority Task Force, responsible for
Operational Transformation of Airport Zilina
(2004) and CEO of Airport Zilina (2005). He
holds an MSc. Degree in Air Transport and a
PhD. Degree in Airport Operation. His main
research interests concern surveys on quality of
service at airports, airport operation and airline
marketing practices. He has published in air
transport journals and conference proceedings.
3
Figure 2: Quality of service measuring questionnaire

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