Building the Friendly Airline Brand

Abstract

Hospitality, the hosting behavior that brings convivial and personalized services with the ultimate aim to provide psychological comfort to guests, is a growing success criterion for service firms in today's new, experience-based economy, and thus has received considerable scientific attention in the service industries literatures. In this stream of research, most of the researchers have examined airline hospitality by taking the view pre-flight, in-flight, post-flight tangible and intangible service quality factors in an integrative manner. However, recent researches have pointed out that the airline industry has evolved in a direction where the intangible factor, such as hospitality of the cabin crew, stands out rather than its concrete functions such as “transport.” In the light of this argument, the purpose of this study is, by examining various cases, to theoretically reveal the airline hospitality as a new and fresh perspective that need to be emphasized in digital marketing activities to create widespread impact on customer experiences.