Article
A Tale of Two Airlines_ A Comparative Case Study of High-Road versus Low-Road Strategies in Customer Service and Reputation Management
International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace
(2019)
Abstract
This research represents an in-depth comparative case study highlighting the differences in marketing strategies, and customer service models between American low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines and European low-cost carrier Ryanair. Analysis focused on the differing brand personalities of the two airlines, particularly with regard to customer service and its relationship to customer satisfaction and overall corporate success from the early days of these organizations through 2013. Southwest Airlines is a budget U.S. airline that prides itself on customer service. Its internal branding provides specific behaviors to ensure employee buy-in to its friendly culture. The focus on respect, concern and a caring attitude toward all customers is a hallmark of the Southwest Airlines internal marketing strategy. This corporate culture appears to build employee motivation resulting in higher levels of quality service, customer satisfaction and higher profitability. Southwest has turned a profit every year since 1973; the only US airline to do so, (Czaplewski, Ferguson and Milliman, 2001; Schleckser, 2018). Ryanair is a budget European airline that ignores typical customer service. It can be easily argued that Ryanair takes the opposite approach to customer service in order to keep costs down. Customers expect low fares but also understand that they will receive a low level of customer service (Ozcelik & Findikli, 2014).
Keywords
- Southwest,
- Ryanair,
- Airline Customer Satisfaction,
- Expectation Confirmation Theory
Disciplines
Publication Date
2019
Publisher Statement
This article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact commons@erau.edu, wolfe309@erau.edu
Citation Information
Donna L Roberts and John C Griffith. "A Tale of Two Airlines_ A Comparative Case Study of High-Road versus Low-Road Strategies in Customer Service and Reputation Management" International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace Vol. 6 Iss. 2 (2019) p. 1 - 35 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/john_griffith/39/
Creative Commons license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY-NC-SA International License.