Assessing the Antecedents and Dimensions of Air Passenger Experience (Case study: Iranian Airlines, Isfahan Airport)

Customer experience has become a focus of study in the scientific community. Though the customer experience and its components are measured to define, the antecedents and dimensions of customer experience require a comprehensive assessment in developing countries such as Iran. For this purpose, 23 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with the passengers of different Iranian airlines. In this attempt, seven dimensions of customer experience were identified--including sensory, emotional, cognitive, recognition, security, novelty, and relationship dimensions--through thematic analysis method. To identify the factors affecting the passenger experience, a list of factors was initially extracted from previous studies. The impact of the ambiance inside the airplane, marketing programs, staff, scheduling, planning and management actions, the scope of passenger choice, and physical facilities were extracted through the fuzzy Delphi method according to 10 experts' views. The purposed method and the findings therein would contribute to the efforts of researchers and marketing practitioners, airline managers, and travel agencies in identifying the existing challenges in the airline industry besides planning to develop modern airline infrastructure and competitive differentiation.