The Impact of Demographical Characteristics on Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction for In-Flight Catering Service

인구통계학적 특성이 항공기내식 서비스 품질과 고객 만족에 미치는 영향

An attempt was made to provide valuable information to improve service quality and customer satisfaction for in-flight catering service. The customers' demographic characteristics that impact on service quality and customer satisfaction were examined for a group of customer. 474 customers who have been used the airplane within 1 year were participated in this study. Statistical analysis was performed using SAS software program (version 6.01) for descriptive analysis, factor analysis, t-test and ANOVA. The results of the study can be summarized as follows: 1. Service Quality in In-flight catering was assessed on the basis of 18 service quality attributes and 5 dimensions derived from a factor analysis. After comparing customers' perception to customers' expectation regarding in-flight service quality, the quality of dimensions for 'meals', and 'sanitation' were not showed any significant differences. However, the expectation for dimensions of 'diversity of menu', 'providing information', and 'the degree of concern to the customers' were rated significantly higher than the perception for those. 2. Among the demographic variables, age and gender had highly influences on the customers' expectation and perception regarding service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. The korean food that the customers wanted to have for in-flight meals was investigated. Among the kinds of gruel(jook), abalone gruel(jeonbok-jook), pumpkin gruel(hobak-jook), and pine-nut gruel(jat-jook) were chosen to have for in-flight korean meals. It was rated that the preferences for beef soup(sogogikook), hot spicy beef soup(youkgaejang), brown sea-weed soup(miyoukkook) were higher than others in soup group. The preferences for boiled rice with assorted mixture(bibimbab) showed the highest and beef and rice soup(seoleongtang), boiled rice with four the staple cereals(ogogbab) were preferred higher than the others in main dish group. Bulgogi was rated the most popular dish. Korean style punch with omiza(whachae), sweet rice dish(yaksik) and fried glutinous rice cake(gangjeong)showed high preferences in dissert.