Air passenger's perception toward pre-flight safety briefing videos: Does it matter?

This study extends the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model with an additional construct (i.e., air passenger's perception toward pre-flight safety communication) in the context of the commercial airline industry. Specifically, this study investigates the relationship among air passengers' perceptions of pre-flight safety communication, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and behavioral intentions. A preliminary study was conducted by soliciting responses from 333 college students in Taiwan. Additional efforts were made to solicit survey participation from tourists who have travelled by air and are more likely to use air travel than a pure student sample. Specifically, surveys were administered to a popular online consumer panel in Taiwan, and a total number of 630 valid survey responses were returned. Empirical results based on the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique indicated that air passengers' perceptions of pre-flight safety communication consist of three sub-dimensions (i.e., regulation and safety equipment, instructions for equipment, general information). Meanwhile, air passengers' perceptions of pre-flight safety communication had a positive and significant influence on both air passengers' attitudes and perceived behavioral control which, in turn, influenced their intentions to pay attention to the safety briefing video. Interestingly, air passengers' perceptions of pre-flight safety communication effectiveness do not have a significant effect on air passenger's intention to pay attention to the briefing videos. In addition, the subjective norm has a positive and significant impact on air passengers' intention of receiving the pre-flight safety video briefing. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in this study.