# Introduction ustomer service, safety quality and benchmarking have been few of the important concerns of airports and airlines worldwide. There has been a greater significant in prioritising customer in order to enhance the benefits in the industry. Through the airport announcement of trade publications in the aviation industry, customers understanding of what service quality is, has become a source of proof to ensure that managers of this field knows how essential they are (Fodness, 2007) Scholarly and researchers have routinely evaluated customers opinion on the service quality of airports in order to benchmark it to the achievements targeted, and the thoughts of the consumers will allow the path for enhancement and in hand bypass the possible loss of prized passenger (Fodness, 2007). Benchmarking is a term that is used to define the vital tool of planning to aim, improvise and achieve a desirable goal that is logical. Therefore it has to be a continuous action in trying to discover the most suitable form of system that will bring the organisation to a remarkable performance. Thus airport benchmarking has many reasons to be implement in order to improvise their performance both externally and internally that will eventually even improve their profitability. As for the safety and security, it is a form of protection that has been a crucial focus by every government. This is evident due to the many devastating attacks by terrorist such as the September 11, 2001 attack that still seems fresh to everyone especially to the citizen's of the United States of America. Due to that incident, the US airlines went through a major financial loss of approximately $3 billion . Therefore all three of these concerns are somehow interrelated to one another to enhance and boost each other in terms of performance, quality and security of an airport and airline. # II. # Customer Service Customer service has been an important part of any business organisation. In fact it has become a world of customer orientated business today, showing how important treating customers truly are. There has never been a lack of proposals and opinions on how to improvise the standards of customer service (Rhoades, 2008). Maintaining current customers and establishing relationship with new customers is vital to any business approach (Bamford, 2007). However every customer has their own perception of what customer service should be hence there are a variety of concerns that has to be taken into account when an organisation is trying to manage its customer service. As for airports and airlines, customer service can be divided into many parts. There are also difference in terms of preferences according to different nation, for example for the American's, authenticity and comfort of the flight are the key to satisfaction, while for the Korean passengers, risk determinant predictions are one of the type of customer satisfaction that is preferred in an airport and airline (Bruning, 2009). Customers always distinguish an airports and airlines service by the performance and how precisely the organisation has performed in accordance to what have been promised. (Tsantoulis, 2008). It is also important to know that customers do not only analyze the service in terms of what they perceive, but they would also correlate it with the different experiences they had with different airport organisations, and from that they would choose the best provider. # III. # Managing Customer Service There are many ways that this industry is able to combat customer dissatisfaction which is by letting their customers know of the available cheapest fares, make sure to keep the passenger up to date if there is any form of flight delays or even cancellations, expending the baggage restrictions, showing concerns toward the delayed passenger by providing some consolations for the inconvenience and most importantly is to acknowledge promptly to any complaints given. Mistakes are bound to happen in any sort of situations and in any type of organisations. Hence in the airport and airline industries, when it does happen customers are hoping to receive acknowledgment in the time of need, good support to be provided by the employees which at the same time has be courteous, knowledgeable and provides warm attentions. These are some of the vital steps to be taken in order to maintain customer's certainty that the management is prioritising customer's satisfaction . Whenever there is a downturn in the service which will be accompanied by customer's complaints, the complaints should be handled efficiently, quickly and properly. This is extremely important to ensure the satisfaction and retention of customer to the industry, and at the same time promote customer loyalty. Hence one of the strategies to be implemented to increase customer satisfaction is to always include service recovery. # IV. # Measuring Customer Service The quality of customer service is able to be identified through the conduct of surveys whereby, it is a process of giving out question to usual customers on some of the common problems and concerns of customer service satisfactions. These surveys are usually managed by organisations such as Frequent Flyer. Typically the type of questions that are usually asked in these surveys will bring out ten elements such as schedule performance, signing in to the airport, lodging services, relaxing chairs, location of the exit gates, internal design of the aircraft, flight attendants, after services provided by flights, meals availability and programs for persistent passengers . Another method that has been used to measure the quality of customer service is by analyzing the delays. European Commission has noticed the duty to identify the sources of delays in airports and airlines using the (CODA) which stand for Central Office for Delay Analysis. This has been an important intention done by the government in order to overcome the frustrations gone through by customers. V. Internet and Technological Usage to Promote Customer Service Internet has also contributed to the enhancement of the service provided. Customers are now able to print their own tickets and bag tags without having to wait in long waiting lines which can also be another reason of poor customer service satisfaction. As for the assistants of customer service, handheld computer such as the Ipads are being used to speed up the procedures that requires waiting in long lines by the customers. Thus this has allowed the management to exceed customers' expectation in terms of frequency and speed of service provided by using the available technology that the world has to offer today. Although internet has its own benefits in improving service quality, but it also has its own disadvantages that most airlines are undergoing today. The available information on pricing that is online is now making it much easier for customers to contrast prices and choose the lowest, hence low cost carrier (LCC) are much likely to benefit from this (Kumar, 2009). # VI. # Research on Customer Service Quality Researchers have also implied that customers evaluate the service quality in accordance to 5 distinctive categories that are the tools under the SERVQUAL which are reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. The greatest emphasis that must be placed among the five dimensions would be the reliability because a customer wants a service that they are able to trust and depend on. However, sometime research's that are conducted to monitor customer service provided are not information's by the actual customers itself (Fodnes, 2007). However it has been determined that within an organisation, its performance of customer service and satisfaction of customers shows a great correlation (Bamford, 2007). # VII. Loyalty vs. Dissatisfied Customer Sometimes customers that are not satisfied quietly decide to change to a different airport provider or spread out negative opinions of the industry to other people which is worse then switching to another provider. When dissatisfied customer turns into having an unpleasant relationship with the organisation, their word-of mouth would give out a devastating negative impact. (Saha, 2009). But there are a few main reasons on why sometimes customers are actually hesitant to directly approach to the airport management and give out the complaint. Authors Dube, Maute and Singh have identified four key points to why customers are reluctant customers don't intend to face the person responsible of the dissatisfaction, third they are worried of how time consuming and high effort are needed to complain and lastly, some of them are actually unaware of their rights as a consumer to give complains towards any dissatisfactions. Despite this, it is vital for the management of any airport and airlines to always effectively resolve customers concerns and frustrations. This because it's always better to have loyal customers rather than to create a 'terrorist' customer that would tarnish the reputation of the organisation at any opportunity given. The degree of loyalty can be also determined by the unfavourable emotional experience that passengers go through during a service which has been identified in current research studies (Petzer, 2012). With proper handling of the negative experience, costumers would move towards becoming a more loyal one. When customer dissatisfaction has dropped, this will also inevitably cause higher customer loyalty and when customers are loyal, they would start recommending to people. Thus this will be a great deal and way of multiplying brand value and not to forget it is also considered a form of free advertising for the organisation. It is now quite obvious that when customers are satisfied this will in hand encourage the return of customers to do more business with the organisation, and at the same time make them give suggestions to others (Nadiri, 2008). Hence there is no uncertainty that the accomplishment and growth of the airline and airport industry is strongly related to its service quality (Chau, 2009). # VIII. Successful Airline Customer Service Currently, international airports have been investigated massively in term of their performance and productivity (Tseng, 2008). In the findings, it has been identified that there are airlines that have actually practised making sure that customer service is at its best and at the same time, continuously making the effort to improve its performance. For example would be the Singapore Airline (SIA). (SIA) have won ample of awards such as best cabin crew service proving that the organization makes sure to take care of its customers. (SIA) focuses on giving excellent service and making sure to continue benchmarking to improve performance. The company has been active in assuring that they keep exceeding the expectations of their customers. (SIA)'s Singapore Girls (Wirtz, 2008) is another interchangeable role in identifying the airlines service. Most other airlines have yet to be able to brand their crew as successfully as the (SIA) which gives them another competitive advantage. Another key to the top notch customer customer service would be the British Airway (BA) where the organisation has actually launched a 'Customer First' campaign as early as in 1983. This proves that customer service has long been a concern of the airport and airline industry. (BA) campaign was done with proper findings of what consumers expect when it comes to personalized service. Southwest airline is also another organisation that has a notable and impressive customer service performance record. This airline makes sure to always be on time, give efficient delivery of customer's baggage's and not to forget to always smile (D.L., 2007). As for the Emirates airlines which is a Dubai established airline, their customer service is known to be outstanding with a slogan of ''Exploring outstanding service, Technology and Comfort' showing their commitment of making sure their passengers have a good experience travelling (Markillie, 2008). To prove how well the service provided by the Emirate airlines, in 2010, a survey was done to compare 7 large scaled airlines that consist of Air France, British Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, Swiss Air, and Virgin Atlantic Airways (Sundaram, 2011) and the results have rated Emirate as the best in providing service. # IX. Procedural and Convivial Services Customer also perceives airport and airline according to the two different types of service that are provided which are the procedural and convivial. Procedural is a service that delivers the customers with quality service that the customers need through an outcome related method such as going through customer's profile or even by information that can be received through questions asked. While convivial service is a more interpersonal type of method used whereby the service providers are the main people that are responsible to identity the needs and wants of the customers. When a provider has this ability to distinguish different kind of emotions of customers, they will then be able to provide the best and most accurate service needed by each type of unique customers. Thus it is understandable that for those service providers that are able to nurture customer's emotions is most likely going to provide better service quality (Bel, 2008). As for the convivial service, it will also measure the quality of the communications between customers and the employees that will determine and give an impact towards the impression of the organisation (Babbar, 2008). Researchers have always undermined the relevance of the contact between customers and employee in order to provide good quality customer service. These two types of service are also useful in managerial perspective to manage human resource. on training their employees. They have implemented the longest and thorough training of as long as four months. (Wirtz, 2008). Another airport organisation with excellent in complaining. First is that they assume that the organisation will not respond in the first place, second out the complaint. Authors Dube, Maute and Singh have identified four key points to why customers are reluctant service provided by (SIA) is because of their emphasis X. Low Cost Carrier (Lcc) vs. Full Service Airlines Another aspect to be considered is the quality of service between Low cost carrier (LCC) and full service airlines. (LCC) have managed to penetrate into this industry due to the dissatisfaction that customers have gone through mainly with the cost of the flight tickets. This has open up the opportunities for (LCC) to enter into the market. As an example, in Europe, there has been a rapid extensions and increment of low cost airlines that has enable more people to now travel within Europe. The reputation and good deed of cost have always been preferred by customers. (Tiernan, 2008). This has caused the traditional carriers to undergo tough competition. They now have to either lower down their prices to challenge their competitor or increase their customer service quality that cannot be done by the (LCC) due to cost restriction. However in a traditional airline or more commonly known as a full service airline, customers expect more than the common services that are provided such as safety that is a usual expectation. (Suhartanto, 2012). Hence that could be another method of competing with the (LCC) and the same time an opportunity to provide better customer service. This will eventually help to gain more loyal customers whom are willing to pay for the prize of good quality customer service. # XI. # Safety Quality Safety and security of airports and airlines have been increasingly tightened due to the significant increment of risk such as terrorist attacks and maintenance problems. Because of that, the management of airports and airlines have taken this concern as extremely important to ensure that their customers are well taken care of and at the same time, it will enhance the organisations credibility. When it comes to spending for maintenance to increase safety quality, there has always been a sense of disagreement. Research has proven to show a stirring controversy because at one side of the report, it appears to be that when carriers spend more on the maintenance it shows a positive rate in reduction of accidents, while in another finding, such connections does not occur . However, though there are conflicts of agreement, there are also a considerable amount of reports that shows when more is spent on maintenance, safety problems do decrease at the same time. The safety rate can be determined by the amount of accidents that happens, air crash, pilot change, and the number of incident which will then be divided by the sum of departures in a yearly basis. Another method of identifying the relationship between the cost of maintenance and the quality of safety is by using the R2 which is used to measure the percentage of variance of both of the variables. It has been found that the carriers in Alaska as well as West America scored low percentage of R2, but at the same time it has to be noted that both of this carriers have also been alleged of lack of maintenance and inadequate records management. Despite that, most of the carriers show a positive relationship between the cost of maintenance and safety, hence as safety issues goes down the cost of maintenance goes up (Rhoade, 2006). However, spending alone on maintenance is not going to guarantee improvement in the quality of safety. This is because even thought how much money is spent on the maintenance, it will not improve the safety quality without the correct procedures, adequate trainings, and legitimate records. Hence money alone is not going to increase the safety quality. Another risk to the safety of this industry is the fatigue episodes such as sleep declination. (Perhinschi, 2010). It has been accepted generally that pilot exhaustion also causes an increase of accidents that distorts the safety quality that passengers are hoping for. # XII. # Risk Management Risk management is another method used to ensure the safety quality of airports. It uses cautionary indicators, and suitable ways of identifying possible threats. The identification is an important aspect of managing risk whereby it ensures the risk to be recognised, filtered and rank all the risk that can possibly occur during an event. Risk workshop are also organised in order to help in the identification and finding enough quick fix to ensure to alleviate the problem. In the airport industry, it is common to have checklist that can be electronic or on paper because it can help minimize the man made errors in a high risk environment. This practice has been considered as mandatory in some conditions and when that happens, it will become a part of flight protocol . Hence risk management is a method used to aid the process of overcoming problems if they occur and at the same time try to keep them from happening. (MATRA) that stands for multi agency threat and risk assessments is one example of a system that is created to asses 5 trial airports in the United Kingdom (UK). After the trial had been done, (MATRA) is now carried out by every airport in the UK which gives a clear scheme to understand about safety and security. This system also acts as an assessment of risk in airports which consists of criminal to terrorist activities, determining the flaws in the current safety of the airport and to establish strategy to manage risk. All of the airports in UK have its own representative members of (MATRA) from the stakeholders, ministry, and specific security operations that are keen in being a part of the system. # XIII. Facilities Management and other Security Enhancement Earlier planning to manage risk can minimize the problems in hand but it will not remove it completely (ENOMA, 2009). But other than that, another method used to manage the safety quality of airports is through the Facilities Management (FM). Its purpose is to ensure that safety and security of the airport which relies upon the capability to distinguish, correspond and handle circumstances that are threatening. This will assist in supporting the airports management objectives. Hence FM has a significant role in handling the safety and security of airports. Airports that are redesigned to facilitate the safety and security will be inspected to see if it is suitable with the framework of the organisation. In times of distress, the airport has facilities to be provided to the passengers as well as their loved ones. During emergencies, the allocation of passengers, feedback on panic attacks or natural disasters are the duty of the airport management. Police forces are also sometimes divided into branches to be involved in the safety and security of airports. For example the Scottish police force have specific department that specialises in securing the airports under the (BAA SECURITY) team. Hence they are also considered part of the labour force in the airport. Their job is to ensure the airport is secure by enforcing security patrol, security fences and to scan the baggages and belongings of passengers. Security and the safety of airport has been a concern to many and that is why every passenger are required to go through screening, not just for their belongings but also screening of their body through x-rays and detector machines. These machines help detect any form of metal that could be dangerous to be carried on board. # XIV. # Benchmarking As stated previously, benchmarking is a form of tool to improvise the performance of a certain organisation. The process requires contrasting between an industry to another to help obtain important details and methods to help the industry to undergo internal and external benchmarking. When it comes to airports, continuous progress has been a crucial and vital goal worldwide. For benchmarking to work, a point of reference first has to be identified. This means the management group has to decide whether to focus on external or internal benchmarking. Internal benchmarking would be, within the airport, comparisons are made to measure the difference in performance achieved by the different departments within the airport. As for external benchmarking, it would be focusing on improving an organisation while comparing it to the competitor of the airport. Benchmarking has been done in terms of cost and financial data's, how competent the airport economic is, and on the conducts of retails. Many airport organisation have used ample of approaches in benchmarking according to the levels of its departments. For example would be swapping of data among the dominant European airport such as Frankfurt and Amsterdam. This is a type of external benchmarking since these two airports are competitors that exchange information to improvise their operations (Graham, 2006). XV. # Sustainable Benchmarking Other than that, environmental performance has also been a recent concern of benchmarking of airports. In every management system, sustainable business management has recently been a popular key topic to be discussed due to the rising degradation of the planet. It is quite evident that most of the economic developments and activities have given a significant environmental damage, thus airports that contain a bigger amount of materials and population would definitely somehow contribute to a lower sustainability (Upham, 2005). Therefore for the airport and airline industries, it has been a priority to be measure and improve its environmental concerns of being more sustainable. These industries are now regularly measuring the degree of its environmental consequences, making environmental objectives as well as targets to be achieved. Environmental sustainability reports have been known to have inadequate proper information that is important and necessary to be given for correlation purpose. Details required in the report tend to disregard the paramount points to provide as standardised indicators of the environmental performance. It can be said that the environmental feature of preparing a report in the airport and airline industry is the same to a non-standardized form of a quantitative performance of the environment (Upham, 2005). By having a uniformed reporting, benchmarking would be easier to be used for comparing and at the same time aid managers and stakeholders to make decisions and evaluate the actual performances. Nonetheless there are still a few reliable methods and indicators to measure the sustainability, for instance the Heathrow Airport Holdings which is also known as BAA. BAA is the operator to four British airports that is based in the United Kingdom. It evaluates its environmental sustainability through the standardised Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) that has produced a guideline for a sustainable reporting application. As for different countries such as Germany, its German Airport association (ADV) produces its own guideline that allows the airports within Germany and others such as Zurich airports to proceed in accordance to it. Hence it is clear that there is no unified guidance when it comes to a sustainable environmental benchmarking. However the usual types of indicators of environment that is commonly measured are noise and air pollutions such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, the usage and wastage of water, recycling activities, and most importantly waste treatments. # XVI. # Drawbacks of Benchmarking Despite all the efforts of benchmarking to improvise the performance, without a proper insight of how the organisation works, it will affect how the airport or airline will operate and in time increase the cost of operations (Allen, 2007). The beginning period of benchmarking was never always easily done especially in the public region. The establishment of this tool was viewed with hesitation and disbelief in allowing a change within the organisation that were prominent within the workplace. (Allen, 2007). Other problems of benchmarking would be that all the data and reports that are available could be not relevant and the language which conveys the information's are usually very hard to understand in order to implement it. Hence it is an unfortunate situation for benchmarking to proceed, because for an improvement to occur, a reliable, easy to understand and relevant source of information must first be given. Another limitation of airport and airline benchmarking would be partial benchmarking. Partial benchmarking is when information's comes from data that are easily accessible and is given in exchange rather than what is actually required which is the tested and verified performance measure (Graham, 2006). Hence the term partial is used because only the available and convenient information's are given that can be puzzling because only the "partial' or in other words the chosen ones are shared. Ever since benchmarking started to be more widely accepted and used by many airports and airlines, the organisations are requiring and are more interested in using a more systematic and econometric plan to gain a better perceptive on how to develop its performance. # XVII. Other Reasons for Benchmarking More managers should also be open to using benchmarking. Benchmarking is known to be another method of management strategy that can be applied in measuring the performance of the organisation, budget, improvise, enhance and motivate a better plan to boost the capability of the industry. Once the managers have identified on how and what can be used as managerial purpose, they can then use is to help achieve the goals set and that will be the reason on what and why they should engage in benchmarking the industry. Furthermore the tensions and constraints of the management to convey a reformed performance along a varied dimension of actions have multiplied in the recent time. This is due to the need and perceptions that the airport and airline industries have to be independently sufficient in terms of finance. Hence this could be achieved if changes are made within the industry and thus would be able to attain the success of being self sufficient financially. Currently airports and airlines have changed from focusing in operational objectives to management which is why financial return is indeed an important expect in the present day. It has also turned into a more commercialized industry than it was before. Moving towards a more private and commercialize industry, the need to show a continuous development in its performance, has escalated (Fry, 2005) ever since the requirement and interest towards airports and airlines has developed from the connection on ineffective operations and the rise of its cost XVIII. # Discussion Based on all the findings, there are major importance of managing airport in terms of benchmarking, customer service and safety quality. Benchmarking has had its success in developing the performance of airports and airlines. Indeed without the attempt to improvise, an organisation will not be able to grow. Hence through benchmarking, it provides a mechanism to establish a better standard of performance. The external and internal benchmarking is an interesting way of improvising the industry because it is important to not only learn from the competitor's performance but it is wise to also check on their own flaws as well. Benchmarking has also made it possible to run a more sustainable system. In the recent year, the environment has been contaminated by the globalization and growing of many new industries. However airports have been known to be one of larger scale cooperation that will contribute to be bigger range of pollution. Although there is yet to be a universal method to measure the sustainability standards of an airport, but the awareness and some measures have been taken into action such as the (GRI). By taking these steps sooner or later, there will eventually be a universal form to measure sustainability, because stakeholders such as customers are known to be more willing participate in an organisation that is concern with the environment .Through the findings, it has also been discovered that though benchmarking has its benefits, but to implement it has been a hassle due to no standardized form of data information that needs to be given (Graham, 2006). Despite the drawbacks faced, benchmarking is indeed something for the management of the airport and airline to look into in order to identify, compare and improvise their current system. By doing so, it can only do more good than harm. Manager must therefore always be open to benchmarking to ensure continuous excellence that will also at the same time attract more customers. Other than that, when it comes to customer service, it definitely has to be among the top priority of the airport and airline industry, because without customers there is no business. Hence customer satisfaction is a vital key to the retention of customer and gaining their loyalty at the same time. Having loyal customer is much cheaper than trying to gain new customers therefore it is wise to always ensure that they are satisfied. There are ample of ways for each different airport and airlines to be able to deliver good customer service such as how Emirates airline provides fresh new ideas to enhance their customer satisfaction, such as private first class suites and their passengers are even able to use their mobile phone on board (Nataraja, 2011). This is not the only way to ensure the best for the customers. Many other airports and airline have performed a significant good job in doing so, but all in their own and unique ways that goes up for the same purpose. Trying to avoid dissatisfied customer is an essential point to be noted. This is because an angry customer is able to perform his or her rights to damage the reputation of the organisation. That kind of degradation can cause major losses, whereby even the trust and loyalty of certain customer could be put to risk as well. Hence treating customer is the most important component and the key for it to survive the market. Moreover, airports and airlines have also been more pressurized to make sure that their safety and security are tight. This has been one of the most popular concerns ever since the major terrorist attack that has been targeting airports and airlines to sadly cause the lost of many precious lives. Due to that, passengers/ customers are more concerned if the airport and airline that they are going to are doing enough to ensure their safety are taken care of. For that reason, these industries have been multiplying their efforts to make sure that they are able to at some extent provide proper safety and security to their customers. This has been done by creating many risk management systems to identify the root of the problem and find the best ways to handle and avoid when the risk actually happens. Hiring outside forces such as the police department to be a part of the security system has also been a valuable procedure to help reduce the risk of attacks. By looking at all three main components which are the customer service, safety quality and benchmarking, it can be said that they are actually all interrelated to one another. Benchmarking is a system to enhance the performance of the airports and airlines. When this is achieved, more customers are willing to do business with them. When that happens, customers will be expecting good quality of customer service as they are now a part of making sure the organisation stays alive. However customers do not only want good services these days, but at the same time their safety has been a major concern as well. Hence all three of these key points of an airport and airline management are therefore interrelated at the end of the day to ensure that they perform well and most importantly they gain the trust and loyalty of their customers. # XIX. # Conclusion In every airport and airlines industry there have been many challenges to be faced and overcome. However with the existence of proper management of good customer service, safety quality and well used benchmarking, the industry will be able to perform at its best. Every organisation is bound to make mistakes. However these mistakes are also going to be the reason of improvising the whole management system. Benchmarking has to start being more widely practiced by airports and airlines worldwide to obtain better standards. Without it, it would be difficult to find the errors of the organisation and to develop from it. Most importantly is the customer. Good customer service is the key to customer satisfaction. Happy customer will become loyal customer and loyal customers' means more profitability. Hence it is the dream of any business organisation to achieve that. In order to do so, the airport and airline industry must always find ways to promote their concerns towards their customer. Providing good service is not the only component of satisfying customer and enhancing the performance of the airport but the safety and security has been a vital part of maintaining the organisation as well as the customers trust. When airports and airlines are capable of managing its safety and security well, it will not only boost the confidence of their customers but at the same time promote it to be better known and more establish in the eye of the public. # Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XIV Issue IV Version I Year ( ) 5![Journal of Management and Business ResearchVolume XIV Issue IV Version I Year ( )](image-2.png "5 Global") The Importance of Managing Customer Service, Safety Quality and Benchmarking of Airports and Airlines to Enhance the Performance and Customer Loyalty © 2014 Global Journals Inc. (US) * Developing key performance indicators for airport safety and security. KPIs for airport safety AEAllen 2007 299 * The human element in airline service quality: contact personnel and the customer SBabbar International Journal of Operations & Production Management 805 2008 * A case study of service failure and recovery within an international airline. A case of service failure and recovery DBamford 2007 306 * Beyond the friendly skies: an integrative framework for managing the air travel experience. Beyond the friendly skies JLBel 2008 439 * Cross-national segmentation An application to the NAFTA airline passenger market. Cross-national segmentation ERBruning 2009 1502 * Bridge over troubled water or long and winding road? Managing Service Quality VSChau 2009 107 * Employees come first at high-flying Southwest Airlines. Managing Service DL R 2007 6 * DawnaLRhoades BP Service and safety quality in US airlines: pre-and post-September 11th. Managing Service Quality 2008 * Developing key performance indicators for airport safety and security. Facilities AEnoma 2007 297 * Developing key performance indicators for airport safety and security. Facilities AEnoma 2007 298 * AIRPORT REDESIGN FOR SAFETY AND SECURITY: CASE STUDIES OF THREE SCOTTISH AIRPORTS AEnoma International Journal of Strategic Property Management 105 2009 * Passengers' expectations of airport service quality DFodnes Journal of Services Marketing 492 2007 * Benchmarking in civil aviation: some empirical evidence. Benchmarking in civil aviation JFry 2005 133 * Benchmarking: An International journal AGraham 2006 106 * An investigation on the factors influencing passengers' loyalty in the North Cyprus national airline KHHalil Nadiri The TQM Journal 268 2008 * Performance improvement possibilities within the US airline industry SKumar International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management 706 2009 * Frustration takes the fun out of flying. STRATEGIC DIRECTION PMarkillie 2008 17 * The exceptional performance strategies of Emirate Airlines SNataraja Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal 473 2011 * Fuzzy logic-based detection scheme for pilot fatigue. Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology MPerhinschi An International Journal 39 2010 * Service receivers' negative emotions in airline and hospital service settings DJPetzer Journal of Services Marketing 484 2012 * DLRhoade Service and safety quality in US airlines: pre-and post-September 11th. Managing Service Quality 2006 312 * Service and safety quality in US airlines: pre-and post-September 11 th . Managing Service Quality DLRhoades 2006 307 * Service and safety quality in US airlines: pre-and post-September 11 th . Managing Service Quality DLRhoades 2006 306 * Twenty years of service quality performance in the US airline industry. Managing Service Quality DLRhoades 2008 28 * Service quality, satisfaction, and behavioural intentions. Managing Service Quality GCSaha 2009 354 * DSuhartanto CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY: THE ROLE OF SERVICE QUALITY AND PRICE. Asia Tourism Forum Conference 2012 6 bandung * The exceptional performance strategies of Emirate Airlines NSundaram Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal 476 2011 * Airline service quality exploratory analysis of consumer perceptions and operational performance in the USA and EU. Managing Service Quality STiernan 2008 213 * Quality convergence in airline co-brand alliances. Managing service quality MTsantoulis 2008 37 * A study on the performance evaluation of major international airports in the world K.-JTseng Journal of Modelling in Management 72 2008 * Environmental and operational sustainability of airports Core indicators and stakeholder communication PJUpham 2005 167 Sustainability of airports * Managing human resources for service excellence and cost effectiveness at Singapore Airlines. Managing service quality JWirtz 2008 12