Multiple Variables That Influencing Thai Passenger In Selecting Domestic Low Cost Airline

Nowadays, the demand of low cost airlines in the Thailand is growing rapidly. Hence, many airlines have changed their marketing strategies and have been trying to reduce their costs and improve their services to meet their consumers demand. Based on this reason, we would like to study the relationship between multiple variables that influence Thai passengers in selecting domestic low cost airlines with the following objectives; to study the relationship between demographic factors, passengers expectation, passengers satisfaction, service marketing mix and brand loyalty of Thai passengers in selecting domestic low cost airlines in three researched low cost airlines, to study the expectation and satisfaction before and after receiving services from domestic low cost airline, to determine the relationship model and the level of influence between demographic factors, service marketing mix, passengers satisfaction and brand loyalty, and, to create the model that is suitable to predict the brand loyalty towards any domestic low cost airline.Based on the review of theory and concepts, we study the demographic factors that affect passengers satisfaction, the service marketing mix in7Ps; Product, Place, Price, Promotion, People, Process and Physical Evidence to measure the passengers satisfaction and the airline-brand factor, of which are studied in the three airlines. The study had been analyzed by the parametric statistics such as Independent-Samples T Test (t-test), One way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Two way analysis of variance (Two-way ANOVA). We found that most of demographic factors, comprising of gender, age, education, income, and occupation, do not have an effect on Thai passengers satisfaction towards the service of domestic low cost airlines, but the satisfaction of Thai passengers is different in accordance with each aspect of the service marketing mix (7P s) and airline brand.The correlation and the difference between expectation and satisfaction before and after receiving services, had been analyzed by the parametric statistics of Paired-Samples Test (t-pair) and Pearson correlation. We found that the means of expectation before receiving services are higher than those of satisfaction after receiving services. It can confirm the theory that “if goods or services service providers give to consumers are the same or higher than what consumers expect, consumers satisfaction and brand loyalty will be achieved, which means those services are high-quality”. Additionally, the factors containing large difference of means of passengers expectations and satisfaction before and after receiving services have a lower level of correlation than those factors which have a small difference.The relationship among the demographic factors, the service marketing mix factor, the passenger satisfaction factor, and the brand loyalty factor, of which influenced Thai passenger in selecting domestic low cost airline, had been analyzed by the parametric statistics of Analysis of (graphical) Path modeling with Latent variables (LVP) or structural equation model (SEM) by Smart PLS software packages for analysis and verified to have a suitable research model. We found that the demographic factors do not have a direct influence on the passengers satisfaction and brand loyalty. However, in contrary, the service marketing mix factor has a direct influence on the passengers satisfaction, but does not have a direct influence on the brand loyalty. While the passengers satisfaction has a direct influence on the brand loyalty. In analyzing the independent variables (satisfaction) which affect the dependent variable (brand loyalty), we used multiple linear regression (MLR) by SPSS software packages and found that the suitable multiple linear regression (MLR) model between of satisfaction factors (independent variables) and attitudinal loyalty (dependent variable) which is explained by Novelty, Contentment, and Relief. While, between satisfaction factors (independent variables) and the behavioral loyalty (dependent variable) which is explained by Surprise, Novelty, Contentment, and Pleasure.