> RJCBS: Volume: 04, Number: 12, October-2015 Page 42

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1 An Exploratory Research on Level of Passengers Satisfaction towards Domestic Flight Services of Ethiopian Airline (With Special Reference to Assosa Airport, BenishangulGumuz Region, Ethiopia) BERIHUN MUCHE Head, Dept. of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Assosa University BenishangulGumuz Region, Assosa, Ethiopia. & Dr. A.GAJENDRAN Associate Professor, Dept. of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Assosa University, BenishangulGumuz Region, Assosa, Ethiopia. ABSTRACT Nowadays huge competition is there in all kinds of business sectors. However, the various service sectors need to be concentrated more in satisfying their customers. The business sectors have to give more attention towards their competitor s business operations. Preferably the service sector should understand the fundamental and adequate needs,wants,attitude,behaviour, taste and preferences of their customers. Out of all Service sectors, Airlines service is one of the familiar sector and most important transportation business for all countries and nowadays they are suffering a lot because of high cost of maintenance,providing adequate Security,providing enough and satisfactory salary to their working personnel, satisfying their passengers and also there is a force to face huge competition to safeguard their survival in airline sector.airline service sectors have to believe and concentrate to satisfy their customers at the optimal level to promote their business and to retain them. The core area of the airline business is Quality service, Passengers satisfaction, Survival and future growth and Cost reduction. On the other hand,service quality is typically defined in terms of Airline Passengers satisfaction. The core objective of this study is to measure the service quality and its subsequent effect on passengers satisfaction towards Domestic Ethiopian Airline Service. To satisfy the above research needs,the researchers haveassessed the attitude of airline passengers towards the quality service of Domestic Ethiopianairline. Keywords :Domestic Ethiopian Airline Services ( DEALS ), Airline Passenger Satisfaction, Service Quality Attributes, Level of Passengers satisfaction, Ethiopian Airline Service. INTRODUCTION At present,air transport industries are more important and inevitable for economic growth and for countries developmental progress. In global market place, air transport makes everything possible and it s the cause of rapid movement of millions and millions of people and high worth of goods to the market around the world in a fastest and efficient manner. For successful survival and to be a good competitor, service provider si.e the airline industries must provide good quality service to its passengers. In addition,understandings, analysing the passengers expectationand satisfying customers needs and differentiate them from other competitors are also important in order to future survival.moreover,airline industries are becoming more popular and morecustomers oriented with more innovative ideas and challenges. In order to secure individual passenger relationship and to ensure customer loyalty, the airline industries are motivated to differentiate their service style and delivery of their service through branding, more individual passenger care at the time of their air travel. Due to more competition in the global market and in order to benefit from untouched African markets, European and Middle Eastern airlines are focusing on the region s market at a maximum level. They are opening new routes, forming alliances with African airlines, and offering competitive flight fares and thereby imposing increased competition to African Airlines. Even though there is a huge competition at International Airline services, the domestic airline has no competition, It has the > RJCBS: Volume: 04, Number: 12, October-2015 Page 42

2 responsibility of satisfying its passengers, giving good quality service. So the service quality is another important element of success formula.airline Service Quality is a key differentiator between the competing airlines. Therefore, Service Quality improvement is the key issue that determines the future survival of the airline itself whether it is domestic or international. The data collected for the present study will reflect the quality of services provided by Domestic Ethiopian Airline and it helps to assesswhether the performance of domestic Ethiopian airline service is on par with the expectations of its passengersor not in terms of overall satisfaction and loyalty. The passengers survey feedback from airline passengers for the present study will also provide more guidelines for the Ethiopian airline industry in terms of strategies requires to improve its present standard of services and retain existing passengers loyalty and satisfaction level as well as help in constructing its own developmental measures to attract new passengers. EVOLUTION OF ETHIOPIAN AIRLINE During the past years, Ethiopian airline has become one of the continent s leading carriers, supreme airline service industry in Africa for effectiveness, efficiency and operational success which leads it to get profits for almost all the years of its existence. Operating at the frontwith adequate technology, it has also become one of Ethiopia s major airline industry and a authentic airline institution in African continent. In addition, its working accurately to make the Ethiopian Aviation Academy,the chiefaviation academy in Africa. Ethiopian airline is one of the airlines, in the world, operating the newest and youngest fleets. It is established in 1945 G.C and totallyowned by Government of Ethiopia. The main vision this is to be the most competitive and leading aviation group in Africa by providing safe, passenger focused,cargo transport, aviation training, flight catering and ground services by The Ethiopian airline has three important missions, that are ; to become the leading Aviation group in Africa by providing safe and reliable passenger and cargo transport, aviation training, flight catering and ground services whose quality of service, fare and valuefor money are better than to its competitors for being an best option to its customers and also to provide vital global air connectivity. Ethiopian airline workswith total of 111 destinations among which 91 are international destinations and 20 are domestic destinations. When we see the regional classification of the destinations it has 52 in Africa, 15 in Europe & America, 24 in the Middle East &Asia, 20 Domestic and 24 in cargo. In addition to the passenger destinations the airline gives cargo service for a total of 24 destinations. Of these destinations 15 are in Africa, 7 in the Middle East and 2 in Europe. Ethiopian airline has code share agreements with a total of eleven air lines. Of which two are African airlines, five are from Europe, three from the Middle East and one from Asia. As to its capacity building, the ultra-modern airport terminal was inaugurated on January 21, The Ethiopian Aviation Academy offers training for pilots both for foreign nationals and Ethiopians, aircraft technicians, cabin crew and marketing, management and finance staff. Ethiopian airline has won eight awards between the year 2008 and 2011 for different nominations including best air line of Africa for the year 2009.In 2011, Ethiopian received three Boeing LLRs in 2011 increasing the total number of LRs to five. Ethiopian started new services to Hangzhou-China, to Malakal-Southern Sudan, Milan-Italy, Muscat-Oman. Ethiopian also launched daily nonstop flights to Beijing with its long range Ethiopian received four different awards during in Ethiopian received "AFRICAN CARGO AIRLINE OF THE YEAR" Award on 24 February Ethiopian won Deal of the Year 2010 Award on 20 April, STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM As per the Ethiopian airline passenger population,it is generally observed and believed that the Ethiopian airline is the best and safest airline throughout the African continent. The Ethiopian airlines also giving good quality service to its passengers. In spite of all these > RJCBS: Volume: 04, Number: 12, October-2015 Page 43

3 services,there is some cause behind passengers dissatisfaction. The researchers also feel that there was some of complaints existstowards the service quality and fare of domestic Ethiopian Airlines.In passengers point of view there is a lot of reasons behind passengers dissatisfaction. If so, It would be very difficult to continuewith passengers belief. In this regard, researchers felt that there is a need to study and analyse the level of satisfaction, passenger dissatisfaction and its cause and also to assess the service quality attributes of passengers towards domestic Ethiopian airline service sector. OBJECTIVES The core objective of the present research study is: To evaluate the level of satisfaction among existing passengers towards domestic Ethiopian airline service. To identify level of service quality of Ethiopian Airline with regard to the level of passenger satisfaction.. To identify thecause of dissatisfaction and suggest measures to Ethiopian Airline which enable it to improve its service quality. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY There is no that much enough secondary data available about domestic Ethiopian airline service. And also it is difficult to collect the details from the airport authorities because of security reasons. Therefore the researchers are decided to go for passenger survey method and the researchers collected data to the maximum of 100 samples and it was analysed with the proper statistical tools under SPSS version 16 and the study got the information s about the demographical factors, level of satisfaction, service quality attributes and cause of dissatisfaction on domestic Ethiopian airline services. More specifically this study will serve as preliminary work or a stepping stone for further study on this issue. And also this study is mandatory to know the mind set and perception of domestic passengers of Ethiopian Airline. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY This research includes the respondent only those passengers who travels by air from Assosa airport to Addis Ababa and the passengers who travels from Assosa airport. Due to security reasons the airport authority won t permit anybody apart from passengers to enter airport. So because of making research more convenient, the data collected only by Ethiopian airline ticket booking office which is located at Assosa opposite to Bamboo hotel. By way of an enquiry, theair passengers who are travelled from Assosa to Addiss Ababa for business or on personal reasons are identified by the researchers. Then the questionnaire distributed to those passengers and if any doubt arises then that was clarified by the researchers with personal care due to maximise the accuracy in getting correct information s from domestic Ethiopian passengers about Ethiopian airline service. In addition,due to time and finance the study restricted up to 100 samples, but actually the filled questionnaire collected from respondents is 99questionnaires only andthat too only with domestic flight passengers. The time taken by the researchers to collect the data for 3 months from April 2015 to June,2015 In addition the data collected only among the air travel passengers of Assosa,Assosa town and Ethiopian ticket booking office. HYPOTHESIS There is no significant difference between the level of satisfaction with regard to services offered by DEALS and Service quality attributes. There is no significant difference between the level of satisfaction with regard to services offered at Assosa Airport and Service quality attributes. > RJCBS: Volume: 04, Number: 12, October-2015 Page 44

4 There is no significant difference between the services offered at Assosa airport and Cause of dissatisfaction of Domestic Ethiopian Airline Service Passengers. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS After feeding the data in to the SPSS softer ware version 16, the appropriate results are derived from it and its presented here as follows for the readers understanding. Table - 1 Table showing the Frequency distribution of Demographical factors : Age, Gender and Educational Qualification of Passengers of Ethiopian Airline Age Frequency % Cumulative % Below * 37.4* and above Total Gender Frequency % Cumulative % Male Female 50* 50.5* Total Educational Qualification Frequency % Cumulative % PhD/Dr Master Degree Holders 28* 28.3* 53.5 Under Graduates Diploma Holders Certificate Course Total Source: Primary data and Computed Initially the demographical part of this study express that out of 99 samples, based on Age the majority of the airline passengers i.e 37.4 percentage of the respondents lies under the age between 20 to 30. The second part of the demographical part is Gender wise classification of airline passengers. Out of total respondents 50 samples are female and the rest of them are male passengers. When we go through the educational qualification of the passenger who travelled at the time of data collection is, the majority of them are literate and their qualification is more than under graduation, that is 28.3 percentage from master degree, 22.2% are from under graduates, the rest of them belongs to othere category. The second part of the data collection tool that is questionnaire focusing on the level of satisfaction with regard to Level of satisfaction which is connected with Service quality attributes of Domestic Ethiopian Airline Service, Availability of Service at Assosa airport and Safety precautions adopted by Domestic Ethiopian Airline at Assosa Airport. The researchers tested the hypothesis by way of testing the level of significance between the Service Quality offered by Domestic Ethiopian Airline and the Service Quality attributes. Based on the regression analysis, under binary logistic model the following results are found and the same were given as follows : > RJCBS: Volume: 04, Number: 12, October-2015 Page 45

5 Table 2 The Results of Testing hypothesis to assess the Significance Level between the Level of Satisfaction towards Quality Service offered by DEALS and Service Quality Attributes Variables df Sig. Variables Df Sig. Variables df Sig. SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA Source: Primary data and Computed DEALS - Domestic Ethiopian Airline Services ;SAQ Service Quality Attribute The result of binary logistic model clearly express that there is a significance between the level of satisfaction and Service quality attributes. At 5% level of significance the resulted p value shows that it is lesser than that of 5% level of significance. The second element of Level of satisfaction is Service Quality at AssosaAirport, based on the results of SPSS, it is observed that there is a connection between level of satisfaction and service quality attributes. The results of binary logistic model given as under : Table 3 The Results of Testing hypothesis to assess thesignificance Level between the Level of Satisfaction towards the Services Quality at Assosa Airport and SQA Variables df Sig. Variables Df Sig. Variables Df Sig. SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA SQA Service Quality Attribute SQA SQA Sources : Primary data and Computed; SAQ Service Quality Attribute From the above table its concluded that there is a significant relationship between level of satisfaction and Service Quality offered at Assosa Airport.The third part of the present study concentrates about the significance level between the level of satisfaction and SQA of Domestic Ethiopian Airline Service. The binary logistic model of Regression is tested and the results of the same is given as follows to prove the hypothesis,: Table - 4 The Significance Level between the Level of Satisfaction towards the Services Quality at Assosa Airport and Cause of dissatisfaction Variables df Sig. Variables Df Sig. Variables Df Sig. COD COD COD > RJCBS: Volume: 04, Number: 12, October-2015 Page 46

6 COD COD COD COD COD COD Source : Primary data ; COD - Cause of dissatisfaction From the above table, it is clearly observed that, all the variables are significant. It means that there is a strong relationship between the level of satisfaction towards the service quality and cause of dissatisfaction. Next,this research study focused on Cross tab between the age and service quality offered by DEALS, service quality offered at Assosa airport and the same details have given in the following paragraph for the easy understanding and also to assess the service quality from the passenger sperspective. Thebasic purpose and objectives of providing the opinion of DEAL passengers is to know the real thoughts of them towards various parameters connected with service quality attributes. Table - 5 The Cross tab between Age and Services provided by DEALS, Service quality at Assosa Airport, Safety precautions at Assosa Airport Age Opinion of DEAL passengers towards Level of Satisfaction Quality Services provided by DEALS Availability of Service Quality at Assosa Airport Availability of Safety Precaution at Assosa Airport Yes No Total Yes No Total Yes No Total < * * * > Total Source : Primary data ; DEALS* : Domestic Ethiopian Airline Service The age wise classification of passengers given in the above table and also it is very clear to identify the opinion of the passengers towards the elements connects with level of satisfaction such as availability of service quality provided by Domestic Ethiopian Airline Service, Service Quality at Assosa Airport and Safety precautions taken Assosa Airport. Form the above tables it is observed that out of total of 99 respondents, 89 domestic airline passengers said that there is a Quality service and it is provided by Domestic Ethiopian Airline and out of them 29 passengers are from 20 to 30 years of age, on the other hand 59 passengers says there is a service quality at Assosa airport, out of 59 passengers, 20 passengers are at the age between 30 to 40 years. In addition to this 89 domestic Ethiopian airline passengers confirmed that there is a safety precautions followed at Assosa airport and 30 passengers of them are belongs to the age group between 30 and 40 years. Table 6 The opinion of DEAL Passengers towards Various Service Quality Attribute Variables Opinion of Airline Passengers Measures Intimation by Efficiency in Efficiency in Quality of In- towards DEALS towards check in Departure flight Meals missing Cancelled / delayed Process Time baggage flights F % F % F % F % F % Highly Dissatisfied Dissatisfied > RJCBS: Volume: 04, Number: 12, October-2015 Page 47

7 Neutral * Satisfied * * * * Highly Satisfied Total Source : Primary data ; DEALS* : Domestic Ethiopian Airline Service The above table clearly express the opinion of the airline passengers of Ethiopian airline. First Based on Quality of inflight meals concerned 50.5% passengers are satisfied with that. 19.2% Ethiopian airline passengers says they are highly satisfied with the meals provided during the travel. When we discuss about efficiency in check in process, efficiency in departure time 49.5% and 40.4% passengers are satisfied. On the other hand 30.3% and 39.4% passengers are highly satisfied with check in process and departure time. In the case of missing baggage s 10.1% passengers are dissatisfied with the services at Assosaairport and majority of the passengers are satisfied with the information provided by the service provider on cancellation and about delayed flights. Table 6.1 Opinion of DEAL Passengers towards Various Service Quality Attribute Variables (Continued) Performance Response of Response Passengers of Airline Employees at towards Confidence Employees Emergency Passenger towards Opinion of Airline Passengers Proper announcement on Departure / Arrival situation complaints DEALS of flights F % F % F % F % F % Highly Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Neutral Satisfied * * * * Highly * Satisfied Total Source : Primary data ; DEALS* : Domestic Ethiopian Airline Service From the above table, it is observed that,with regard to performance of airline employees, 41.4% passengers are satisfied. 46.5% passengers towards response of airline service employees, 49.5% towards response towards passenger s complaint by Ethiopian airline, 50.5% passengers towards their confidence level towards Domestic Ethiopian airline service says that they are satisfied with the level of service provided by Ethiopian airline on mentioned services. Similarly 40.4% passengers are highly satisfied with proper announcement of departure and arrival of flights. FINDINGS Based on the hypothesis testing,it is observed that there is a connection between level of satisfaction and service quality attributes. In addition,it is also found that there is a connection between level of satisfaction and service quality offered at Assosa airport. On the other hand,it s clearly observed that there is a strong relationship between the level of satisfaction towards the service quality at Assosa airport and cause of dissatisfaction. It is also found that through our study and analysis that the majority of the Ethiopian airline passengers who are travelled from Assosaairport to Addis Ababa airport are satisfied and highly satisfied with the services of Ethiopian Airline. > RJCBS: Volume: 04, Number: 12, October-2015 Page 48

8 CONCLUSION Based on the observations and analysisof the collected data, it is concluded that Ethiopian airline is the leading Aviation group in Africa by providing safe and reliable passenger service and cargo air transport, Aviation Training, Flight Catering, Ground Services whose quality and price value proposition is always better than its competitors.in addition it is concluded that, Ethiopian airline positively works with the socio economic development of Ethiopia in particular and also with corporate social responsibilities, providing vital global air connectivity.it is observed and concluded with the passengers point of view that,ethiopian airline concentrates mainly on safety and it is a high performance based learning organization with continuous improvements, innovation and knowledgesharing. It also works for the change which leads to growth opportunity and also it seeks for and applies the best ideas regardless of their source. Therefore, it is finally concluded that the services of Ethiopian airline should be appreciated and needs to be continued for many more years for the plenty of societal, people benefit and future Ethiopian business development. In addition the researchers appreciate the service of Ethiopian airline and pray god for development of its extraordinary growth and performance. > RJCBS: Volume: 04, Number: 12, October-2015 Page 49