IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaitra/v15y2009i5p221-226.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer willingness to pay for in-flight service and comfort levels: A choice experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Balcombe, Kelvin
  • Fraser, Iain
  • Harris, Liam

Abstract

In the competitive aviation market as a result of the emergence of low cost carriers, charter airlines have had to reconsider their approach to service provision. Specifically, the reduction in service and comfort levels offered by the low cost airlines provides charter carriers with an opportunity to differentiate their product based on the quality of the offering. To consider this strategic option we employ an on-line choice experiment to examine consumer choices with respect to the bundle of services on offer when deciding to purchase a flight. With these data we use the Bayesian methods to estimate a mixed logit specification. Our results reveal that in principle passengers are willing to pay a relatively large amount for enhanced service quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Balcombe, Kelvin & Fraser, Iain & Harris, Liam, 2009. "Consumer willingness to pay for in-flight service and comfort levels: A choice experiment," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 221-226.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:15:y:2009:i:5:p:221-226
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2008.12.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969699708001762
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2008.12.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hess, Stephane & Adler, Thomas & Polak, John W., 2007. "Modelling airport and airline choice behaviour with the use of stated preference survey data," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 221-233, May.
    2. David Hensher & William Greene, 2003. "The Mixed Logit model: The state of practice," Transportation, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 133-176, May.
    3. Dennis, Nigel, 2007. "End of the free lunch? The responses of traditional European airlines to the low-cost carrier threat," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 311-321.
    4. Hess, Stephane & Polak, John W., 2005. "Mixed logit modelling of airport choice in multi-airport regions," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 59-68.
    5. Bieger, Thomas & Wittmer, Andreas, 2006. "Air transport and tourism—Perspectives and challenges for destinations, airlines and governments," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 40-46.
    6. Teichert, Thorsten & Shehu, Edlira & von Wartburg, Iwan, 2008. "Customer segmentation revisited: The case of the airline industry," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 227-242, January.
    7. Espino, Raquel & Martín, Juan Carlos & Román, Concepción, 2008. "Analyzing the effect of preference heterogeneity on willingness to pay for improving service quality in an airline choice context," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 593-606, July.
    8. Rose, John M. & Hensher, David A. & Greene, William H., 2005. "Recovering costs through price and service differentiation: Accounting for exogenous information on attribute processing strategies in airline choice," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 400-407.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhou, Heng & Norman, Richard & Xia, Jianhong(Cecilia) & Hughes, Brett & Kelobonye, Keone & Nikolova, Gabi & Falkmer, Torbjorn, 2020. "Analysing travel mode and airline choice using latent class modelling: A case study in Western Australia," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 187-205.
    2. Wen, Chieh-Hua & Huang, Chia-Jung & Fu, Chiang, 2020. "Incorporating continuous representation of preferences for flight departure times into stated itinerary choice modeling," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 10-20.
    3. Tsai, Tsung-Hsien, 2016. "Homogeneous service with heterogeneous products: Relationships among airline ticket fares and purchase fences," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 164-175.
    4. Crabbe, Marjolein & Akinc, Deniz & Vandebroek, Martina, 2014. "Fast algorithms to generate individualized designs for the mixed logit choice model," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-15.
    5. Cordera, Rubén & Luigi dell’Olio, & Sipone, Silvia & Moura, José Luis, 2024. "Modeling airport choice for a multi-airport area using a random parameter logit model," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    6. Hess, Stephane, 2007. "Posterior analysis of random taste coefficients in air travel behaviour modelling," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 203-212.
    7. Li, Zhi-Chun & Sheng, Dian, 2016. "Forecasting passenger travel demand for air and high-speed rail integration service: A case study of Beijing-Guangzhou corridor, China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 397-410.
    8. Marcucci, Edoardo & Gatta, Valerio, 2011. "Regional airport choice: Consumer behaviour and policy implications," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 70-84.
    9. Fu, Qian & Kim, Amy M., 2016. "Supply-and-demand models for exploring relationships between smaller airports and neighboring hub airports in the U.S," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 67-79.
    10. Fosgerau, Mogens & Bierlaire, Michel, 2007. "A practical test for the choice of mixing distribution in discrete choice models," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 784-794, August.
    11. Lu, Xiao-Yun & Gosling, Geoffrey D. & Shladover, Steven E. & Xiong, Jing & Ceder, Avi, 2006. "Development of a Modeling Framework for Analyzing Improvements in Intermodal Connectivity at California Airports," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt586755r9, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    12. Grigolon, Anna B. & Kemperman, Astrid D.A.M. & Timmermans, Harry J.P., 2012. "The influence of low-fare airlines on vacation choices of students: Results of a stated portfolio choice experiment," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1174-1184.
    13. Amenta, Nina & Sanguinetti, Angela, 2020. "Adding Carbon to the Equation in Online Flight Search," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt5n53672m, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    14. Cho, Woohyun & Windle, Robert J. & Dresner, Martin E., 2015. "The impact of low-cost carriers on airport choice in the US: A case study of the Washington–Baltimore region," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 141-157.
    15. Kim, Sung Hoo & Mokhtarian, Patricia L., 2023. "Finite mixture (or latent class) modeling in transportation: Trends, usage, potential, and future directions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 134-173.
    16. Usami, Munekatsu & Manabe, Masashi & Kimura, Shin, 2017. "Airport choice and flight connectivity among domestic and international passengers – Empirical analysis using passenger movement survey data in Japan," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 15-20.
    17. Ishii, Jun & Jun, Sunyoung & Van Dender, Kurt, 2009. "Air travel choices in multi-airport markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 216-227, March.
    18. Adiloğlu-Yalçınkaya, Leyla & Besler, Senem, 2021. "Institutional factors influencing business models: The case of Turkish Airlines," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    19. Teixeira, Filipe Marques & Derudder, Ben, 2021. "Spatio-temporal dynamics in airport catchment areas: The case of the New York Multi Airport Region," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    20. Hetrakul, Pratt & Cirillo, Cinzia, 2013. "Accommodating taste heterogeneity in railway passenger choice models based on internet booking data," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 1-16.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:15:y:2009:i:5:p:221-226. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-air-transport-management/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.