Customer Satisfaction and Quality of Vietnam Airlines Domestic Services

JED No.213 July 2012 | 115 
Customer Satisfaction and Quality of 
Vietnam Airlines Domestic Services 
HÀ NAM KHÁNH GIAO 
Associate professor at University of Finance- Marketing, E-mail: khanhgiaohn@yahoo.com 
TRẦN THỊ THÙY TRANG 
Master of Arts, E-mail: thuytrangvn81@yahoo.com 
NGUYỄN DUY LONG 
Master of Arts, E-mail: duylong2008@gmail.com. 
ABSTRACT 
The paper examines relation between quality of Vietnam Airlines domestic services 
and customer satisfaction by gathering opinions from 402 passengers employing 
Skytrax scale with some modification along with Cronbach’s alpha, EFA and multiple 
regression analysis. 
Results show that quality of Vietnam Airlines domestic services can be measured by 
the following six components in order of importance: (1) boarding/deplaning/baggage; 
(2) check-in; (3) in-flight services; (4) reservation; (5) aircraft; and (6) flight crew. All 
of them are directly proportional to customer satisfaction. The paper also offers some 
suggestions to improve the service quality thereby enhancing the customer satisfaction. 
Keywords: Vietnam Airlines, domestic services, service quality, satisfaction 
116 | Hà Nam Khánh Giao Quality of Vietnam Airlines Domestic Services 
1. AN OVERVIEW 
In the past few years, the air transport has gained high growth rates. IATA reports 
showed that air transport of passenger in 2011 rose by 5.9% in spite of adverse 
conditions, such as economic recession in many Western countries. 
According to 2011 Report by Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, the air transport 
business served 16.6 million passengers and 195,000 tonnes of cargo, increasing by 
13.6% and 3% respectively in 2010. Additionally, 51 foreign airlines are operating 54 
routes from 22 countries or territories to Vietnam. 
Domestic services offered by five local airlines (the fifth one is VietJet Air that came 
into operation as from Dec. 25, 2011) comprise 39 routes from three hubs – Hà Nội, Đà 
Nẵng and HCMC – to 17 local airports. The biggest market shares of this business are 
held by Vietnam Airlines (VNA) and Jetstar Pacific Airlines (JPA). The data show that 
air transport is a potential and promising market. Local airlines and VNA in particular 
are facing great challenges and keen competition from foreign rivals. 
According to Skytrax, VNA is only ranked as a three-star service on a five-star scale. 
This means that VNA service quality is at a medium level and it should make great 
efforts to improve its service quality. Measuring customer satisfaction with service 
quality is an important task but it has not been cared of properly. There are not many 
researches on this task and there is no agreement about a scale, SERVQUAL or 
SERVPARF, used for measuring service quality and customer satisfaction for the air 
transport business. When VNA joined Skyteam on June 10, 2010, use of Skytrax ranking 
scale is necessary and also the objective of this research. 
2. THEORETICAL BASIS AND RESEARCH MODEL 
a. Quality of Aviation Service: 
The Draft International Standard, ISO\DIS 9000:2000 defines quality as “ability of 
a set of inherent characteristics of a product, system, or process to fulfill requirements 
of customers and other interested parties.” Parasuraman et al. (1985) argue that service 
quality is considered as results of customers’ comparison between their expectation of 
the service and their perception after using the service. 
Morash & Ozment (1994) note that service quality conditions influence an airline's 
competitive advantage, and with this comes market share, and ultimately profitability. 
However, air transport service, like many other services, has its own characteristics 
 JED No.213 July 2012 | 117 
and standards, about safety for example. Some characteristics are (i) interactive effects 
between service provider and customer, (ii) personalization, and (iii) high labor 
content. 
According to the Australian Bureau of Transport Economics, standards of air 
transport service quality include (1) safety), (2) customer information, (3) flight 
frequency, (4) smooth air services, (5) on-time operation, (6) ground service and 
equipment, and (7) in-flight amenity and services. Elliott & Roach (1993) suggest the 
following standards for aviation services: (1) food and beverages, (2) time for baggage 
collection, (3) comfortable seat, (4) checking procedure, and (5) in-flight services. 
Gourdin & Kloppenborg (1991) suggest a scale for aviation service quality includes (1) 
baggage handling, (2) compensation procedure, (3) operation and safety, (4) flight 
comfort, and (5) network and flight frequency. 
The McGraw-Hill Company (2010) measures service quality and satisfaction of 
12,300 passengers of 12 North American airlines using Skytrax standards suggested by 
Skyteam and finds seven influential factors: (1) fee, (2) in-flight services, (3) 
reservation, (4) flight crew, (5) boarding/deplaning/baggage, (6) aircraft, and (7) 
check-in. 
b. Relation between Aviation Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction: 
Hà & Nguyễn (2011) give a simple conclusion of customer satisfaction as an 
intersection or overlap area between corporate ability and customer need; or a feeling 
of a person coming from comparison of outcome produced by commodity/service with 
his/her expectations. 
Zeithaml & Bitner (2000) argue that customer satisfaction with service quality is 
assessment and comparison of their perception of value of the service they receive with 
their expectation. Huang (2009) says that many researches on aviation verify the 
relation between aviation service quality and customer satisfaction. 
This research applies criteria for measuring customer satisfaction with aviation 
service quality offered by McGraw-Hill (2010) to the case of Vietnam Airlines in 
which the aviation service quality comprises six components: (1) reservation (RES), 
(2) Check-in (CHE), (3) Aircraft (AIR), (4) in-flight services (INF), (5) flight crew 
(FLI), and boarding/deplaning/baggage (BDB). Suggested research model is based on 
aforementioned theoretical preconditions and presented in Figure 1 
118 | Hà Nam Khánh Giao Quality of Vietnam Airlines Domestic Services 
Figure 1: Suggested Research Model 
3. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RESEARCH 
a. Qualitative Research: 
In-depth interviews with three VNA high-ranking officials are conducted to identify 
components of service quality and evaluating criteria. Questions are devised 
beforehand. The interviews are followed by a group discussion based on open 
questions with seven passengers who frequently use VNA domestic services in order to 
find their perception of components of service quality. Their opinions are used for 
improving and developing scales for aviation service quality. 
b. Survey: 
A quantitative survey is conducted in Tân Sơn Nhất Airport (HCMC). Target 
population includes Vietnamese passengers who are in the 18-60 age bracket and used 
VNA domestic services two times at least in the last six months. Samples are picked 
out according to quota sampling method, as shown in Table 1. 
Boarding/deplaning/ 
baggage (BDB) 
Flight crew 
(FLI) 
In-flight services (INF) 
Aircraft 
(AIR) 
Check-in 
(CHE) 
Reservation 
(RES) 
Satisfaction 
of local 
customers of 
VNA (SAT) 
 JED No.213 July 2012 | 119 
Table 1: Sample Size and Sampling Results 
Route Quota 
Interviewed 
passengers 
Qualified 
responses 
TP.HCM (SGN) – Hà Nội (HAN) 160 200 163 
TP.HCM (SGN) – Nha Trang (NHA) 120 150 122 
TP.HCM (SGN) – Đà Nẵng (DAD) 120 150 117 
Total 400 500 402 
Data are gathered by 15-minute direct interviews and questionnaires. The 
interviews are conducted at waiting lounges of airports. Of 500 issued questionnaires, 
437 (87.4%) responded; and 35 of them are considered as inappropriate because of 
many wrong answers or unfilled blanks. Thus, only 402 answered questionnaires can 
be used for the research. 
c. Characteristics of Samples: 
The characteristics are presented in Table 2 
Table 2: Sample Characteristics 
N = 402 Frequency As % 
Gender Male 
 Female 
193 
209 
48.0 
52.0 
Age From 18 to 33 
 ≥ 34 – 46 
 ≥ 47 – 60 
203 
129 
70 
50.5 
32.1 
17.4 
Monthly ≤ VND5 mn. 
Income From VND5 to 10 mn. 
 ≥ VND10 mn. 
84 
208 
110 
20.9 
51.7 
27.4 
Travel Business 
purpose Conference 
 Visiting relatives 
 Tourism 
 Others 
125 
39 
91 
113 
34 
31.1 
9.7 
22.6 
28.1 
8.5 
120 | Hà Nam Khánh Giao Quality of Vietnam Airlines Domestic Services 
Education Junior high school 
 Senior high school 
Technical high school 
 3-year college 
 University 
 Postgraduate 
23 
73 
45 
38 
151 
72 
5.7 
18.2 
11.2 
9.5 
37.6 
17.9 
d. Results of Scale Test: 
Table 3 shows that Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of all scales are greater than 
0.6; and all item-total correlation coefficients are greater than 0.3. Thus, all scales 
are reliable and can be used for EFA (Nunnally & Burnstein, 1994). 
Table 3: Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficients for Scales of Components of Quality 
Service and Customer Satisfaction 
No. Scale Obs. 
Cronbach's 
Alpha 
Smallest item-total 
correlation coefficients 
1 Reservation (RES), 5 0.837 0.574 
2 Check-in (CHE) 3 0.733 0.517 
3 Aircraft (AIR) 3 0.654 0.378 
4 In-flight services (INF) 6 0.869 0.594 
5 Flight crew (FLI) 4 0.820 0.546 
6 Boarding/deplaning/baggage (BDB) 7 0.899 0.703 
7 Satisfaction (SAT) 3 0.834 0.656 
In the EFA process, principal components analysis and Varimax are employed. 
EFA results show that: KMO = 0.888 while chi-square statistic of Barlett’s test reaches 
7298.249 at Sig. = 0.000. All 31 components are reduced to seven factors with 
eigenvalue of 1.041 (greater than 1) with a variation of 66.42% (able to explain 
66.42% of changes in dataset). Observed variables of seven factors all have factor 
loadings greater than 0.5, and they are used for analyzing the research model of 
multiple linear regression. Thus, resultant scales are acceptable. After conducting the 
factor rotation with all 31 aforementioned variables, seven factors are extracted (Table 
4). 
 JED No.213 July 2012 | 121 
Table 4: EFA Results 
No. Factor 
No. of 
variables 
eigenvalue 
Variance 
extracted 
1 Boarding/deplaning/baggage (BDB) 7 11.141 35.940 
2 In-flight services (INF) 6 2.111 6.811 
3 Flight crew (FLI) 4 2.003 6.460 
4 Reservation (RES) 5 1.694 5.465 
5 Check-in (CHE) 3 1.347 4.346 
6 Aircraft (AIR) 3 1.254 4.044 
7 Satisfaction (SAT) 3 1.041 3.357 
EFA results show that scales measuring customer satisfaction and components of 
service quality did obtain convergent validity. The results also implies that the research 
model remains stable, comprising six independent variables and one dependent 
variable. 
e. Multiple Linear Regression Analysis: 
Table 5 shows that the dependent variable has a close linear relation with 
six independent variables at α < 0.05. Because all absolute correlation coefficients 
between variables vary from 0.245 to 0.671, thus satisfying condition -1 ≤ r ≤ + 1, all 
variables are qualified for multiple linear regression analysis. This demonstrates that 
the discriminant validity is achieved, or in other words, scales used in this research can 
measure various constructs. Correlation matrix also shows that the variable BDB has 
the greatest effect on the customer satisfaction while CHE produces the smallest effect. 
Table 5: Correlation Coefficients between Components 
 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 
1. BDB 1 .580
**
 .517
**
 .322
**
 .245
**
 .427
**
 .671
**
2. INF .580
**
 1 .493
**
 .300
**
 .299
**
 .433
**
 .566
**
3. RES .517
**
 .493
**
 1 .411
**
 .337
**
 .393
**
 .454
**
4. FLI .322
**
 .300
**
 .411
**
 1 .159
**
 .194
**
 .272
**
5. CHE .245
**
 .299
**
 .337
**
 .159
**
 1 .322
**
 .555
**
122 | Hà Nam Khánh Giao Quality of Vietnam Airlines Domestic Services 
6. AIR .427
**
 .433
**
 .393
**
 .194
**
 .322
**
 1 .423
**
7. SAT .671
**
 .566
**
 .454
**
 .272
**
 .555
**
 .423
**
 1 
(**) Pearson correlation is statistically significant at p < 0.01; n = 402 
Results of the MLR analysis of relations between factors of service quality and 
satisfaction using the Enter method are presented in Table 6. Relations between the 
aviation service quality reflected in six factors (INF, FLI, RES, CHE, BDB and AIR) 
with SAT all have Sig. greater than 0.05, and they are presented in the following: 
SAT = 0.794*BDB + 0.541*INF + 0.275*RES + 0.133*FLI + 0.483*CHE + 
0.218*AIR + 0.241 
Table 6: MLR Analysis Results 
Model 
Unstandardized 
coefficients 
Standardized 
coefficients t 
Sig. 
Multicollinearity 
 
Standard 
error 
 Tolerance VIF 
Constant .241 .197 1.223. .817 
BDB .794 .045 .536 17.642 .000 .569 1.758 
INF .541 .050 .329 10.826 .000 .579 1.727 
RES .275 .051 .164 5.384 .000 .591 1.693 
FLI .133 .038 .106 3.496 .001 .811 1.234 
CHE .483 .035 .419 13.791 .000 .835 1.198 
AIR .218 .042 .158 5.185 .000 .721 1.388 
Adjusted R
2
 = 0.627, F = 113.414, Sig.= 0.000 
Table 6 shows that the greatest effect on SAT is produced by BDB ( = 0.536), 
followed by CHE ( = 0.419), INF ( = 0.329), RES ( = 0.164); AIR ( = 
0.158), and FLI ( = 0.106). Additionally, all regression coefficients bear positive 
signs, implying that all factors in the model are directly proportional to customer 
satisfaction. 
 JED No.213 July 2012 | 123 
Table 7: Adjusted R2 & F-values 
Model R R
2
Adjusted 
R
2
Standard 
error of the 
estimate 
Statistical changes 
R
2 
change 
F change df1 df2 
Sig F. 
change 
1 .795
a
 .633 .627 .55298 .633 113.414 6 395 .000 
Table 7 shows that R2 is 0.633 and adjusted R2 is 0.627. This implies that the fitness 
of the model is 62.7%. In other words, 62.7% of customer satisfaction can be explained 
by the six independent variables, and the remaining 37.3% is affected by other 
variables. 
Table 8: Results of analysis of variance 
Model Total sum of squares df Mean square F Sig. 
1 
Regression 208.085 6 34.681 113.414 .000
a
Residual 120.787 395 .306 
Total 328.872 401 
Results of analysis of variance show that the F-value is 113.414, and Sig. = 0.000 < 
0.01, implying that at least one independent variable has a linear relation with the 
dependent variable. Thus, independent variables in the model have linear relations with 
the dependent variable and explain its changes, that is, components of service quality 
can explain changes in satisfaction. This means that the regression model is fit for 
dataset and usable, and all variables are statistically significant at 5%. 
Table 6 shows that Tolerance value is very small and all VIF coefficients are 
smaller than 10 implying that multicollinearity does not exist. Scatter plot of residual 
and predicted value of the regression model reveals no relation between them, and thus 
the linearity assumption of the model is acceptable. Result of analysis of residual based 
on Histogram approximates standard level, residual has mean value 3 .32 *10-16
≈ 0 
and Std. Dev = 0.992 ≈ 1. P-P plot shows that distribution of residual can be 
considered as of standard, and assumption of normal distribution of residual is not 
violated. In short, results of model tests and tests for violation of necessary 
assumptions show that the regression model used in the research is suitable. 
f. Analyzing Importance of Factors Based on Mean Value: 
124 | Hà Nam Khánh Giao Quality of Vietnam Airlines Domestic Services 
Results of estimation of components of aviation service according to statistic 
method describing the mean value in a 5-point scale show that scores given by 
passengers vary from “medium” to “pretty good.” (Table 9) 
Table 9: Passengers’ estimates of components 
Factor Obs. Mean 
Std. 
deviation 
Std. error 
BDB 402 3.40 1.032 .051 
CHE 402 3.31 1.054 0.53 
INF 402 3.56 .942 .047 
RES 402 3.60 .897 0.45 
AIR 402 3.47 1.009 .050 
FLI 402 3.51 .990 .050 
SAT 402 3.41 1.045 0.52 
The highest scores are given to RES (mean = 3.60), followed by INF (3.56), and 
FLI (3.51) while medium scores are given to AIR (3.47), and BDB (3.40); and the 
lowest one to CHE (3.31). SAT is given a pretty high score of 3.41. 
4. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 
a. Conclusion: 
The research identifies six components affecting the aviation service quality and 
customer satisfaction with VNA domestic services. The greatest effects are produced 
by BDB, followed by CHE, INF, RES and AIR. The weakest effect is caused by FLI. 
The six components can explain 62.7% of customer satisfaction. 
Statistics of mean values given by customers to those six components show that 
these values are not high. This implies that passengers are not really satisfied with 
VNA services. This research can be considered as a contribution to an empirical 
research on aviation service quality based on Skytrax standards. 
b. Suggested Solutions: 
- BDB: Flight schedule, especially for domestic services, should be preserved. 
Passengers should be informed timely of all changes or delays. Baggage delivery and 
collection should be done conveniently and all damage to baggage should be handled 
 JED No.213 July 2012 | 125 
and compensated properly. VNA must supply necessary services to passengers of 
delayed or cancelled flights, such as some fee services in waiting lounges and hotel 
rooms at reasonable charges. 
CHE: VNA staff should service passengers with professionalism to avoid mistakes. 
More training courses in foreign languages and work ethics should be given to VNA 
staff to create a friendly atmosphere for passengers. 
INF: In-flight services can be improved by diversifying in-flight meals and 
entertainment programs, supplying more newspapers and magazines. Needed 
information about the flight should be given to passengers. Air hostesses should be 
polite, considerate and friendly towards passengers. 
RES: The VNA should respond properly when passengers want to change their 
reservation. Information about flight schedules should be available on VNA website to 
spare customers from seeking information at travel agencies. VNA should supply 
online reservation services. 
AIR: VNA aircrafts should have modern equipment to serve passengers betters, 
especially children, pregnant women and the disabled. Modern aircrafts, such as 
Boeing 747, Boeing 767 and A321, can help enhance flight safety and comfort. 
FLI: Pilot should have professional training and experience. The air crew should be 
friendly, considerate and fluent in foreign languages. Knowledge of sign language also 
helps improve their communicative power. 
Finally, VNA, as the national carrier with great financial and human potentials, 
along with support from local passengers, should make the best use of its advantages 
and favorable conditions to develop into an internationally-acclaimed airline 
company 
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