Flight Delays Recovery And Customer Satisfaction And Behavioral Intentions Relationship

Recently, the issue of flights delay has been more and more noticeable. Customers who experience flights delay would be dissatisfied and even exit. The well-executed recovery can restore customer satisfaction, build customer relationships and prevent customer defections. The cases of flights delay are very complex. The requirements of customers will change according to different cases. Consequently, it is important for airline companies to establish effective recovery measurements.In this article, we adopt both theoretic and empirical research methods. Based on reviewing and summarizing the previous research work in the field of recovery, we establish the research model of recovery measurements, initial negative affect, the controllability and severity of flights delay, customer satisfaction and behavior intentions. Then we describe six different flights delay scenarios and propose four kinds of recovery measurements of different levels. We make empirical research on the influence of the recovery on customer satisfaction and behavior intentions using the data collected by the investigation questionnaires.The research shows that recovery measurements have significant influence on customer satisfaction and behavior intentions. The impact of interactive justice on customer satisfaction and behavior intentions is bigger that the impact of distributive justice. But the impact of distributive justice on customer satisfaction and behavior intentions will increase as the enhancement of the severity of flights delay. The controllability of flights delay can only influence customer satisfaction and behavior intentions when the severity is high (four hours and above). Besides, the initial negative affect doesn't have impact on customer satisfaction with recovery.In conclusion, we give some advice on the implement of fights delay recovery effectively for airline companies according to the research findings.Firstly, the airline companies must pay enough attention on the interpersonal treatment when dealing with flights delay incidents.Secondly, it is also necessary to provide customer free room and board, ticket return and discount of ticket when the flights delay is severe.Thirdly, for the flights delay caused by the airline company itself, the airline company needs to try its best to put wide resources to remedy the problem especially when the severity is relatively high (four hours and above).