The evaluation of a service quality: the case of "FLYLAL-Lithuanian Airlines

Service quality evaluation based on the \"flyLAL-Lithuanian Airlines\" case The object of the thesis: Service quality of the airline. The problem of the research: Insufficient attention to the service quality of the airline. The aim of the research: To investigate whether the costumers’ expectations formed by service provider match the customers’ perceived quality, whether the value obtained corresponds to the price paid for it. The goals of the research: • To investigate how costumers evaluate the different dimensions of the service quality; • To analyze perceived quality of the costumers; • To investigate the level of costumers satisfaction of services provided; • To investigate the level of costumers’ loyalty. The investigative questions: • What influences the perception of the quality of the services provided? • On what based the service quality is evaluated? • What is the costumers’ satisfaction level of received services? • Do the results of the research show the level of costumers’ loyalty? Hypothesis: services quality provided does not correspond to the price paid for it – costumers are not satisfied with the quality of service provided. Conclusions and recommendations: Services provided by the airlines differ from other services because of the bigger amount of the components of a process. Service quality provided directly affects company’s sales. It is important to understand the peculiarities of this specific business area, to foresee all the factors of service quality which would be possible to improve. The aim of the work to investigate the service quality provided by airline „flyLAL – Lithuanian Airlines” in order to prepare service quality improvement project. For this purpose the theoretical terms of service, service quality, marketing mix were defined, the peculiarities of service characteristics and their influence to perception of the quality were determined. There were also service quality models and their assessment aspects listed. The research was made based on SERVQUAL methodology using questionnaire survey. It was investigated how the service quality of „flyLAL – Lithuanian Airlines” is evaluated. Costumers are satisfied only when the service quality perceived meets or exceeds their expectations. To maintain the loyalty of the costumers is one of the most important goals of the company (to maintain the current client is more profitable than to attract new one) therefore it is always important to measure costumers’ satisfaction and loyalty level in the researches. The results of the research accomplished showed that majority (86,4%) of respondents were satisfied with the service quality received and 77,3% said that service quality provided by the airline corresponds to the price paid for it. Therefore the hypothesis of the research was falsified. Results also showed that respondents are minded to recommend “flyLAL” for their friends or acquaintances. Even 77 % of the respondents said that they would use services of “flyLAL” again. The research helped to distinguish areas which are important to improve if willing to enlarge the image of the company, to increase the level of costumers’ loyalty, to attract new costumers – all this leads to increased sales. Keywords: service, quality, evaluation, airline, costumers