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Designing Service to Improve Service Quality of Civil Aviation Industry in China

Conference Paper · July 2007

DOI: 10.1109/ICSSSM.2007.4280098 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 Designing Service to Improve Service Quality
of Civil Aviation Industry in China

Zhao Yifei1, Ren Xinhui2

1
Air Traffic Management Collage, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin, 300300, China
2
Economics and Management Collage, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin, 300300, China
{yfzhao, xhren} @cauc.edu.cn

ABSTRACT
As the domestic and international competition becomes more and more fierce, airlines and airports in china are meeting
unprecedented challenges. Service quality then becomes significantly important to achieve a genuine and sustainable
competitive advantage, and the question for civil aviation industries in china which need to solve imperatively. The
purpose of this study is to improve service quality by designing service system and evaluating service quality. Planning
tool of service blueprinting and evaluating method of SERVQUAL model is applied.
Keywords: Civil Aviation industry, Service Quality, Service Blueprint, The Method of Evaluating Service Quality

1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Service quality, according to Parasuraman et al., is “the
degree of discrepancy between customers’ normative
expectations for the service and their perceptions of the
service performance”.
Zeithaml et al have identified dimensions of service
quality, which are Responsiveness, Assurance, Tangibles,
Empathy, and Reliability. These form the basis of the
SERVQUAL scale for measurement of service quality.
• Responsiveness - willingness to help;
• Assurance- knowledge and courtesy of employees
and ability to inspire trust and confidence;
• Tangibles- appearance of facilities, personnel and
communications;
• Empathy- caring, individual attention;
• Reliability - accuracy and dependability.
From the viewpoint of civil aviation industry itself, many
problems still existed in service process, such as
passengers waiting time so long, flights always delay,
tickets are not endorsed on time, which make customers
unsatisfied. Due to air transport includes a lots operators
and processes; any error appears in anyplace, which can
lead to negative impact on service quality.
Therefore, after analyzing outside and internal
surroundings, how to improve and evaluate service
quality is becoming a key factor for our airlines and
airports to survival and succeed in today’s environment.
Service quality becomes significantly important to
achieve a genuine and sustainable competitive
advantage.
3. HOW TO IMPROVE SERVICE QUALITY?

From a strategic point of view, quality was initially
proposed as a complementary component of cost
leadership strategies through the development of value.
Quality has also been incorporated as a means by which
firms may enhance differentiation strategies, allowing
organizations to increasingly distance themselves from
the competition.
2. WHY NEED TO IMPROVE SERVICE QUALITY
OF CIVIL AVIATION INDUSTRY IN CHINA?
The civil aviation industry in china is going through
dramatic changes in the years to come. The airlines are
forced by the increasing worldwide competition due to
china enter WTO and global airlines alliance. Meanwhile
modern integrate transportation system is building in
China; the civil aviation industry is confronting fiercer
competition introduced by high speed rail and road
transport. Such as the speedway from Cheng Du to
Chong Qing had built, it make air passengers decrease
rapidly from 400000 in 1994 to 11000 in 2001, airline
had to cancel many flights.
3.1 Analyze Present Service Quality of Aviation
Industry
Air transportation belongs to service industry. Generally,
services are conceptualized as activities or processes
distinguished by specific characteristics: Intangibility;
Simultaneity or Inseparability; Perishability;
Heterogeneity. As a consequence, there are likely to be
variations in service provision, by virtue of the
participants, the time of the encounter or the
circumstances. So it is difficult that industry provides
uniform stable and excellent service, and exist many
problem in managing service quality. It is necessary to
design service systemically.
Due to outdate manage system and managing ideas, there
are many problems in civil aviation industries of china.
Obligation of each department and operation process is
divided strictly, and effective communication is lack, so
employee can not understand his role in whole service
process. That led to everyone and every department only
pays attention to own work, not care for link with other

1-4244-0885-7/07/$20.00 ©2007 IEEE.

department. Other department which does not contact
with passengers directly, think the front employees are
only responsibility for improving service quality, they
needn’t care for. When the trouble happened, everyone
shirk blame, not find a way to solve problem with other
department.
In fact, customer measure service quality from integral
service they perceived. Errors in any process will impact
negatively on airline service quality. In investigation of
china aviation transportation association, flight delay is
most not satisfied to passengers. Especially, the message
is not informed on time when flight delay. owing to lack
of cooperating, information delivers not smoothly among
departments. In order to overcome the problems in
aviation industries of china, it is essential to design
service systemically to improving service quality.
3.2 Tool of Service Design—Service Blueprints
Service blueprinting was developed by G. Lynn Shostack.
She states “a service blueprint allows a company to
explore all the issues inherent in creating or managing a
service.” It is a tool for simultaneously depicting the
service process, the points of customer contact, and the
evidence of service from the customer’s point of view.
Blueprints provide a means of communication between
operations and marketing and can highlight potential
problems on paper before they occur.
A diagram of the service process shows activities, flows,
physical evidence, and lines of visibility and interaction.
The difference between service blueprints and other flow
chart include two aspects; one is from passenger’s point
view when service is designed, other is employee
participation, blueprint is a achievement of team work. It
is useful tool to design service, not only emphasizing
importance of perception service quality caused by
service encounter, furthermore paying attention to
backstage contact. Building a Service Blueprint includes
steps as follows:
Step1: Identify the process to be blue-printed;
Step2: Identify the customer or customer segment;
Step3: Map the process from the customer’s point of
view;
Step4: Map contact employee actions, onstage and
back-stage, and/or technology actions;
Step5: Link contact activities to needed support
functions;
Step6: Add evidence of service at each customer action
step.
3.3 Map Blueprint of Air Passenger Transportation
Air transportation includes air cargo and air passenger
markets, there are lots of contacts between employees
with customers in passenger market, so we focus on
service process in passenger market in this paper. It is
noted that the aviation industry is consist of airline and
airport together, because customer perceptive service is
provided by airline and airport, everyone’s action in
airline or in airport will impact service system, so they
should find ways to improve service quality jointly.
Blueprint of air passenger transportation is mapped as
figure 2. The diagram depicts service system of air
passenger transport, instead of section. In practice, the
figure can be mapped by investigating customer and
collecting data, and discussing in all departments. Create
a service blueprint to identify specific elements of the
service delivery process.
3.4 Apply Blueprint
According to figure 2, indicate how to use the blueprint
of passenger air transportation. Airlines and airports can
identify specific elements of the service delivery process
and explore all the issues inherent in creating or
managing a service, so that conduct root cause analysis,
modify processes and make service better. It can
highlight potential problems on paper before they occur.
First, reading horizontally:
Reading customer action from left to right, we can
analyze steps in service process. After marking time with
all steps, and measures cutting down customer’s waiting
time can be achieved.
There are five steps when customer goes into passenger
building, which are paying charge of airport, delivering
baggage, and checking-in, security checking, and waiting
flight. These five steps are more important and
concentrated, can mark average service time on them
when using blueprint in practice. Average service time
can be obtained by investigated a number of passengers,
which vary with airports. As example of Qingdao airport,
service time in five steps were counted respectively;
which are 61seconds, 20s, 158s, 138s, 46minuts. In the
peak time, passengers waited more time. By analyzing,
we can find some problems as follows:
Paying airport charge can be overleaped by cooperating
between airline and airport. The fee can be combined
with ticket price, airline or sell agents collect it when
they sell tickets, and they hand to airport after deducting
commission from it. Now, this step really is bypassed.
In five steps, waiting flight time is the longest period, so
this step needs to be considered as key point. This
shortcoming can be overcome from two aspects, one is
shortening waiting time directly; the other is providing
attractive service to delight passengers. In figure 1, we
can see steps before passenger enplane are absolutely
necessarily, the ways of shortening waiting time can be
attained by enhancing efficiency, introducing advanced
facility, strengthening link between steps. Meanwhile,
airline and airport could establish such ways to improve
customer service as increasing category of commodity,
decreasing price of goods, introducing famous brand.
Especially provide service for special passengers, like
business passengers, patients, and disability passengers.
Second, reading vertically:
Corresponding to customer actions, employee actions
and support processes are included in each step. After
analyzing, we can identify if employee actions of onstage
and backstage are satisfied with passengers, and if
support processes can provide to employee actions, if the
links are close, if everyone can response when
emergency burst. Through analyzing figure 1, the
following problem will occur:
For example, in the fourth step, passengers take bus to
airport, no contact happen with employee when they
arrive. Ordinarily, there is a driver in bus; he did not
pride extra service for passengers. Because airport is
usually 30minuts or more distance from city, some
services can be provided in order to reduce passengers’
humdrum. Such as magazine or newspaper of tourism
and business, broadcasting or and video can be provided,
and the layout of passenger building and flow of
passenger can be introduced.
Contrasting customer actions, physical evidences are
checked, so we can identify whether they are reasonable,
and add service else to satisfy customers. For example,
Figure 1 Service blueprint of air passenger transportation
*: airport charge is combined with ticket price now.
4. HOW TO MEASURE IMPROVE
PERFORMANCE OF SERVICE QUALITY?
4.1 Introduce SERVQUAL Model
broadcasting is absent of local culture and geography;
food is characterless; amusement is missing in long
range flight; etc. In order to improve service quality in
air, airlines should improve service according to
characteristic of Chinese tradition.
Last, analyzing key point:
Aiming at key point or part which is easy to be wrong
with actions, more detail blueprint can be designed, or
analyzing with flow map. For example, passengers are
dissatisfied with flight delay which is key factor to
impact service quality of air transportation. Airlines
should understand reasons to cause flight delay, how to
delivery information, and how to service passengers.
After considering the elements, blueprint or flow map
can be drawn, and solution can be made.
It is noted that airlines and airports in China should
analyze separately basing on situation of each industry. It
is much more important to solve problems than find
problems.
Accepting the general validity of the SERVQUAL model,
which assesses gaps between customer expectations of
service quality and their perceptions of its actual delivery
by the provider, this study introduces the SERVQUAL dimensions of service (Tangibles, Reliability, Assurance,
model to apply for aggregate assessments of air Responsiveness, and Empathy) are used to assess overall
passenger service quality, evaluating the degree to which service quality of companies, as well as performance in
they fulfill the expectations of their customers, any of five dimensions. This analysis does not address
identifying factors essential to improve delivered service individual SERVQUAL dimensions, rather focuses on
quality. aggregate assessment of service quality of airline and
airport.
The SERVQUAL model concentrates on five gaps
impairing the delivery of excellent service quality; this 4.2 Measure Improve Performance of Air Passenger
study focuses on Gap 5: the difference between airline Service Quality Using SERVQUAL Model
passenger expectations and perceptions of service.
Before concerted efforts can be successfully undertaken The five dimensions are divided 22 service quality
to redress service management problems that impede the statements, defined in table 1, grouped in five
delivery of truly excellent service quality, it is essential dimensions, or as an aggregate service quality value.
to know to what degree customer perceptions of existing Passenger responses to individual statements, providing
service fail to meet expectations. We study Gap 5 which unique insights to consumer perceptions and
focuses on the differences between consumer expectations of the service rendered, the foundation for
expectations and perceptions. This is also the only gap aggregate dimension scores, which are further combined
that can be examined solely on the data from the to provide an overall service quality score for each
consumer; study of other gaps, while important, would aviation industry.
require data collection from companies themselves.
Because service for passenger is provided by airline and
The SERVQUAL model is formulated by using airport together, they are regarded as whole when
statements grouped to constitute five dimensions measuring effect of improving service quality.
representing the core criteria by which customers have SERVQUAL model can be used by follows:
been determined to evaluate service quality. The five
Table 1 SERVQUAL statements of aviation industry
Service quality
Statement
dimension
Tangibles (1) TAN1 Excellent airlines will have modern-looking aircraft.
(2) TAN2 The office, terminal and gate facilities of excellent airlines will be visually appealing
(3) TAN3 An excellent airline's employees will be neat appearing
(4) TAN4 An excellent airline's materials associated with its service, e.g. pamphlets or statements, will be
visually appealing
Reliability (5) REL1 When excellent airlines promise to do something by a certain time, they will do so
(6) REL2 When a customer has a problem, an excellent airline shows a sincere interest in solving it
(7) REL3 Excellent airlines will perform the service right the first time
(8) REL4 Excellent airlines will provide their services at the time they promise to do so
(9) REL5 Excellent airlines will insist on error-free records
Responsiveness (10) RSP1 Employees of excellent airlines will tell customers exactly when services will be performed
(11) RSP2 Employees in excellent airlines will give prompt service to customers
(12) RSP3 Employees of excellent airlines will always be willing to help customers
(13) RSP4 Employees in excellent airlines will never be too busy to respond to customer requests
Assurance (14) ASR1 The behavior of employees in excellent airlines will instill confidence in customers
(15) ASR2 Customers of excellent airlines will feel safe in their transactions
(16) ASR3 Employees in excellent airlines will be consistently courteous with customers
(17) ASR4 Employees in excellent airlines will have the knowledge to answer customers' questions
Empathy (18) EMP1 Excellent airlines will give customers individual attention
(19) EMP2 Excellent airlines have operating hours convenient to all their customers
(20) EMP3 Excellent airlines will have employees who give customers personal attention
(21) EMP4 Excellent airlines will have the customer's best interests at heart
(22) EMP5 The employees of excellent airlines will understand the specific needs of their customers
Individual service quality feature scores:
An individual service quality feature score for airline
passenger respondents is determined by calculating the
difference between passenger-assigned scores to
expectation and perception statements (Gap 5)
distinguishing the five dimensions:
xijk = pijk − eijk (1)
where x is the respondent difference score between
perception (p) and expectation (e), of respondents (i) for
any of the 22 statements (table 1) representing an
expression of service quality (i = 1, . . . N, where N =
number of respondents); while j represents the
SERVQUAL dimensions (1 through 5) and k represents
the number of statements (four or five) in a SERVQUAL
dimension.
Airline and airport SERVQUAL dimension scores:
We propose that relative importance of the same
dimensions should be the same, and the relative
importance attributed to dimensions influencing
customer service quality expectations and perceptions
does not change. Aviation industry SERVQUAL
dimension scores are summed:
⎡ k j xijk ⎤
N ⎢ ∑ k =1 k
⎥ captured by two sets of constructs: the importance of
ASQ j = ∑ ⎢ j ⎥ (2)
i =1 ⎢ N ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ ⎦
where ASQj represents the aggregate service quality
score for each of five dimensions (j= 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), k
represents individual statements in the respective
dimension (four or five statements comprising a
dimension, as described in table 1), j represents the
SERVQUAL dimensions (1 through 5), kj represents the
number of statements in the jth dimension, and N equals
the number of respondents.
Overall SERVQUAL score:
Aggregate airline service quality (ASQ) scores for the
five dimensions are averaged to provide an overall
unweighted measure of service quality, by dividing the
cumulative dimension scores by five:
∑
5
j =1
ASQ j
ASQu = (3)
5 from others; probe overall about improvement service
where ASQu represents an overall measurement of
service quality of a provider, e.g. airline, calculated by
dividing the sum of aggregate SERVQUAL dimension
scores by the number of SERVQUAL dimensions (5).
If customers think relative importance of the dimensions
s is not the same, we should calculate the scores using
equation (4).
∑
5
w j × ASQ j
j =1
ASQu = (4)
∑ j=1 w j
5
where wj represents weight of each dimension, as well as
importance of five dimensions is different.
Full scores of all statements are 10 marks, and sum of
weights of quality dimension is 100%. In order to
indicate how to measure, we suppose there are 4
passengers to be investigated, their expectations (E i) and
perceptions (Pi) of air transportation service quality are
listed in table 2. The relative importance of service
dimensions is determined according to survey result of
customer committee of civil aviation association in
China, and listed also. Reliability is the most important
among the service quality dimensions and Tangibles
least. Based on equation (1), (2), and (4), we can
calculate scores of five dimensions, and can obtain the
result of ASQu.
ASQu=0.105×31.7%+0.0125×20.4%+0.0875×17.2%+0.04
×16.4%+0.0375×14.3%=0.0628075
In practice, passenger surveys are as more as possible,
the result can be objective. A common passenger survey
instrument was provided for each airline or airport to
collect data. The survey instrument consisted of aviation
industry service quality expectations and perceptions of
airline service quality. Service Quality Expectations were
service quality (SERVQUAL) dimensions (ratio scale);
and expectations of service quality, using the 22
SERVQUAL dimension statements adapted for airline
industry context (table 1).
If the score of ASQu after taking measure to improve
service quality exceeds before, we can identify the
improved performance of air passenger service quality is
effective, therewith can benchmark the leader of airlines
and airports, or can learn from competitive industry.
Contrariwise, we can evaluate whether improving quality
attain result or not, and should find problem, analyze
cause, do some actions to repair.
5. CONCLUSION
The literature of improving airline service quality is
more necessary near years; it is evidence that aviation
industry have realized service quality becomes
significantly important to achieve a genuine and
sustainable competitive advantage. This study is different
quality in airline and airport of China basing on three
aspects, which are why, and how to improve service
quality in civil aviation industry, and how to measure
performance of improvement. And paper has answered
the three questions. Planning tool of service blueprinting
and evaluating method of SERVQUAL model is applied
in this study, and look forward to taking practice in civil
aviation industry of China. Because passenger service
process includes many points, airline and airport should
work as a whole to improve service quality. Based on
research of this paper, it will be very helpful to establish
updating way for each airport or airline in China.
 Table 2 Overall SERVQUAL score of service quality
SERVQUAL factor P1 E1 X1 P2 E2 X2 P3 E3 X3 P4 E4 X4 ASQj
Reliability 31.7℅
EREL1 9.2 9 0.2 9.1 8.8 0.3 9.2 9.4 -0.2 9.1 8.6 0.5
EREL2 9.3 9.4 -0.1 8.7 9 -0.3 9.2 8.8 0.4 9.5 9.1 0.4
EREL3 9 8.9 0.1 8.8 9.1 -0.3 9.3 9 0.3 9 8.7 0.3
EREL4 9.4 9 0.4 9 8.6 0.4 8.7 8.8 -0.1 9.2 9.1 0.1
EREL5 9.1 9.3 -0.2 8.8 9 -0.2 9.1 8.7 0.4 8.9 9.2 -0.3
mean value 0.08 -0.02 0.16 0.2 0.105
Responsiveness 20.4℅
ERSP1 9 9.5 -0.5 9 8.9 0.1 8.7 9 -0.3 8.8 9.2 -0.4
ERSP2 9.3 9.2 0.1 9.2 8.7 0.5 8.7 9.4 -0.7 8.6 9.2 -0.6
ERSP3 9.5 9 0.5 9.4 8.8 0.6 8.8 9 -0.2 9.1 9.2 -0.1
ERSP4 9.4 9.4 0 9.3 9.2 0.1 9.2 8.8 0.4 9.3 8.6 0.7
mean value 0.025 0.325 -0.2 -0.1 0.0125
Assurance 17.2℅
EASR1 9.2 9 0.2 9.3 8.8 0.5 9.2 9.1 0.1 8.7 8.9 -0.2
EASR2 9.1 8.9 0.2 9.3 9.3 0 8.9 9.2 -0.3 9.4 9 0.4
EASR3 9.4 9.5 -0.1 8.9 9.2 -0.3 9 8.6 0.4 9.4 9 0.4
EASR4 9.6 9.6 0 9.3 9.5 -0.2 9.3 9.2 0.1 9.2 9 0.2
mean value 0.075 0 0.075 0.2 0.0875
Empathy 16.4℅
EEMP1 9 8.6 0.4 9.1 8.7 0.4 8.8 9.4 -0.6 9.2 9 0.2
EEMP2 9 8.7 0.3 9.1 8.9 0.2 8.9 9.2 -0.3 9 8.6 0.4
EEMP3 9.1 8.7 0.4 9.2 8.8 0.4 8.9 9.4 -0.5 9.1 9 0.1
EEMP4 9.4 9.4 0 9.4 9.6 -0.2 9.1 8.9 0.2 8.8 9.2 -0.4
EEMP5 9.5 9 0.5 8.8 9.2 -0.4 9.3 9.3 0 8.9 9.2 -0.3
mean value 0.32 0.08 -0.24 0 0.04
Tangibles 14.3℅
ETAN1 9.5 9.2 0.3 9.4 9.1 0.3 9.2 9 0.2 8.9 9.4 -0.5
ETAN2 8.9 9.2 -0.3 9.3 9 0.3 9.4 9.3 0.1 9 9.2 -0.2
ETAN3 9.2 8.7 0.5 9.3 9.1 0.2 9.2 9.3 -0.1 9.1 9 0.1
ETAN4 9.2 9.2 0 9.4 9.1 0.3 8.7 9 -0.3 8.6 8.9 -0.3
mean value 0.125 0.275 -0.025 -0.225 0.0375

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