Abstract
This study investigates how airline service quality influences passenger satisfaction and loyalty in South Africa’s domestic aviation sector, using FlySafair and Airlink to represent low-cost and full-service models. A positivist, quantitative design was used, and data were collected through an online survey completed by 405 passengers travelling from Johannesburg to either Cape Town or Durban. The adapted AIRQUAL framework guided the analysis, capturing three core dimensions of service quality: empathy, airline image, and the combined terminal and in-flight physical environment. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, correlation tests, and multiple regression were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics.
The findings show that passenger satisfaction is the strongest predictor of loyalty, confirming that loyalty is sustained when service quality enhances both functional performance and emotional assurance. All three AIRQUAL dimensions contributed meaningfully to passenger satisfaction, although their influence varied between airline types. FlySafair passengers placed greater emphasis on reliability, efficiency, and value for money, while Airlink passengers responded more strongly to communication quality, comfort, and brand confidence. Together, service quality and passenger satisfaction explained a substantial share of the variation in loyalty, reinforcing the strategic importance of service quality for retention in competitive domestic markets.
The study demonstrates the suitability of the AIRQUAL model in a developing country context and offers practical guidance for airline managers seeking to improve traveller retention. Low-cost carriers benefit from strengthening consistency and disruption communication, while full-service airlines gain an advantage through personalisation, service recovery, and brand signalling. These insights contribute to a growing evidence base on passenger behaviour in South African aviation and highlight passenger satisfaction as the core pathway through which service quality builds lasting loyalty.