ABSTRACT
76Creating a superior customer experience has been gaining increased attention in the service sector. The diverse market offerings that stimulate enduring experience, which customers cherish, have competitive edge over most competing products or services. Customer experience acts as an emerging opportunity in this fast-paced, highly competitive world, especially in the new horizon of experience economy. Due to an increasing growth rate and diversity of airline passengers, customer experience is emerging as a critical element in civil aviation sector. It is crucial for airlines to offer great experiences to passengers in order to gain a competitive advantage. This paper thus examines the nature and extent of customer experience in civil aviation sector. More specifically, the study explores dimensions of customer experience in civil aviation sector using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The study is based on data of sample size of 1005 respondents from selected airlines, namely Air India, Jet Airways, and Kingfisher. The results of EFA, hierarchical regression model, and ANOVA depict that customer experience is a multidimensional construct. It further suggests that there is a significant impact of experiential dimensions on overall customer experience and there exists a significant difference on the basis of airlines regarding customer experience. The results also reveal that Jet Airways has higher level of customer experience followed by Kingfisher and Air India.
