CUSTOMER VALUE OF PURCHASABLE SUPPLEMENTARY SERVICES

There is a general trend in the airline industry to find ways to generate ancillary revenue by offering additional or unbundled services. Especially low cost carriers are known to unbundle their services, however, in contrast only some network carriers started to unbundle their services and gain ancillary revenues, others do not due to a possible negative impact on customer perception and their brand image.
The goal of this study is to determine viability and customer value of purchasable supplementary services for economy class passengers of European full-service network carriers. The focus of the study lies in determining specific characteristics of the customer value concept in the context of purchasable supplementary services. Additionally, knowledge about the unbundling of existing services, the introduction of new additional services, and the packaging of purchasable supplementary services is gained in order to determine the feasibility of implementing such measures.
Using a customer value hierarchy to formulate the economy class passenger's desired attributes of purchasable supplementary services, a framework was built as a base for the research. Furthermore, a choice-based conjoint analysis was used to determine the implicit preferences in regard to purchasable supplementary service of economy class passengers. A survey was conducted at Zurich Airport in Switzerland and the results and analysis were built on the data of 249 respondents.
The results show that economy class passengers do perceive value in purchasable supplementary services and display a general intention to purchase such services as long as they provide the passenger with added value and utility.