A study examining the association between airline maintenance outsourcing and passengers' perceptions.

摘要

Managers of major airlines are outsourcing more than half of their heavy maintenance to third party providers. As airline managers adapted to the changing marketplace, they reduced costs to remain competitive in an industry that competes with airfares. Airline managers reduced costs through service reductions and began using maintenance outsourcing as another method to reduce costs. Passengers could have a concern that airline managers are increasing their use of maintenance outsourcing and this could change their perception about air travel. A focus of this quantitative study was to examine whether an association existed between airline maintenance outsourcing and passengers' perception of air travel. Selection of passengers for the study was through a convenience sample. The convenience sample was a composite of an Internet and an intercept survey resulting in a sample size of 134 passengers. Internet sampling began with employees of a business and a request to recommend acquaintances to take the survey. An intercept of patrons visiting a local community library provided additional respondents. A Likert-type survey captured passengers' attitudes about air travel and airline maintenance outsourcing. A Spearman test indicated the strength of the association between airline maintenance outsourcing and passengers' perception about air travel. The results of the Spearman test indicated there was sufficient evidence to reject each null hypothesis regarding passengers' concerns about maintenance outsourcing, their perceptions of air travel, their perception about safety, and their willingness to pay a higher airfare. Results from the Spearman rho test indicated that an association existed between passengers' concern about maintenance outsourcing, perception of air travel rs (129) = .344, p .01, perception of safety rs (129) = .465, p .01, and willingness to pay a higher airfare r s (127) = -.254, p .01. The results developed in the study may not represent the population of passengers based on convenience sampling. Therefore, the results need to be compared and examined with future studies. These findings provided information that can assist airline managers, union representatives, and FAA officials in understanding passengers' perception about air travel and maintenance outsourcing.