A review of air transport service quality studies: Current status and future research agenda

Air transport service quality has been a popular research topic in the last decade. A systematic literature review on this topic was conducted on the articles published in quality transport, tourism, and consumer service journals. We present the statistics on study locations, leading authors and affiliations, citations, and research frameworks and data collection methods. We show that there is an increasing use of online survey tools for data collection. Most of the articles have explicitly or implicitly used the SERVQUAL model or its variations such as AIRQUAL to examine the air transport service attributes. Several research areas are identified to bring the SERVQUAL model and the air transport service quality research up to date: the digital and technology-enabled service dimensions, the privacy and cybersecurity consideration, the corporate social responsibility dimension, and the hygiene requirement. We also call for in-depth studies into some individual service dimensions such as services for special needs passengers.