Airline relationship quality: An examination of Taiwanese passengers

Customer relationship management has become an increasingly important issue for airlines. This study develops a model to investigate the antecedents of airline relationship quality from the customer's perspective. Based on the findings from in-depth interviews with airline customers, we examine the relative impact of customer orientation, domain expertise, interpersonal relationships, service recovery, and information technology on customers’ perceptions of the quality of their relationships with airlines. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze survey data collected from 252 domestic passengers in Taiwan. The results show that, in the order of importance, customer orientation, domain expertise, service recovery performance, and interpersonal relationships are the major factors contributing to airline relationship quality, whereas information technology has no significant effect.