Research On The Market Segmentation Of Air Passenger Transportation Based On Customer Value

The sound development of civil aviation industry in China and the expansion of the market have popularized the air passenger transportation. The composition of the passenger structure tends to be more and more diverse due to the vast increasement of the passengers. Furthermore, the demands towards the very product and service are becoming increasingly differentiated. The fierce competition among the enterprises included in such an industry, especially the airlines and the airports, have also raised a claim for clarifying the preferences and values of the passengers in order to promoting their competitiveness and the capacity of profit-making. Based on the aforementioned facts, the research on the market segmentation was carried out based on the customer value(CV). Using the definition and the measuring model of CV proposed by the former scholars for reference, this paper defined CV in air passenger transportation and the research dimensions. The measuring scale of CV in such a market was determined, the core values for passengers were acquired and an empirical study was carried out aimed at those who were on the airlines of Nanjing-Shenzhen and Shanghai-Shenzhen.The sample data was collected through two pre-testing questionnaires and a formal one, the value measuring scale was thus obtained. As showed by the results of factor analysis, it's feasible to depict the CV by the dimensions of product value, service value, personnel value and image value in the air passenger transportation market. The distracted common factors are the product value of the air passenger transportation, the service value of the air passenger transportation, the personnel value of the air passenger transportation and the image value of the air passenger transportation. On the basis of common factors and the factors scores, the paper applied the FCM algorithm based on the hierarchy clustering to realize the final segmentation of the market and four subordinate markets were got, they were passengers in pursuit of efficiency, passengers in pursuit of service, passengers in pursuit of personnel capacity and passengers in pursuit of overall image respectively. Finally, the paper verified the effectiveness and practicability of the whole process of market segmentation by analyzing the correlation and chi-square among the degree of acceptance towards air passenger transportation, the tendency of repurchasing and the purchasing frequency of the passengers.