Airline service quality (AIRQUAL) improvement approach for Thai Airways during the rehabilitation

College of Hospitality Industry Management; Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, 1 U Thong Nok rd., Dusit, Bangkok, Thailand, 10300

^* Corresponding author: korawin.ku@ssru.ac.th

Abstract

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, Thai Airways (THAI) and many other airlines have been suffering from significant losses and a shortage of liquidity and cash flow. Therefore, the submitted rehabilitation plan aims to completely restructure and enable THAI to become profitable again (Thai Airways, 2021). This study therefore aims to contribute a guideline for enhancing service quality for customer satisfaction in the business by using content analysis from documents, books, tables, articles and related research to examine data based on the Airline Service Quality (AIRQUAL), a crucial component for all service providers, but particularly in the airline industry. This study in line with the forecast of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) that the aviation industry will recover to normal within the next few years and the Thai national strategy (2018-2037) on developing future industries and services in order to be key growth engines designed to push Thailand to become a developed country through advanced innovations and technologies and also serves as a foundation for further studies and could possibly accelerate existing research on airline service quality and customers' airline selection decisions.