An investigation of the factors influencing passenger choice of airline in Kenya Airways

Abstract

The powerful forces of globalization, which have created new rules and new winners in scores of industries worldwide, will inevitably bring hard decisions and dramatic changes to the way airlines conduct their business. An airline can outperform its rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. Consumer choice is the all powerful tool passengers have. If an airline is able to satisfy the factors this choice rely on, then the airline is able to satisfy its passengers and by so doing retain them. The consistent delivery of superior service requires the careful design and execution of a whole system of activities that includes people, capital, technology, and processes. The few airlines that can manage this system do stand out, and are sought out.

The biggest task is to be able to identify what is the most important consideration for passengers to patronise the services of an airline and keep on coming for more. Therefore there is a need to examine how passengers who are virtually from everywhere in the globe relate with successful airlines especially in developing economies. The objective of this study was to establish the factors influencing choice of airline by passengers flying with Kenya airways which is one of the Africa's successful airlines.

The research design was a case study which was conducted at Jomo Kenyatta international airport, Nairobi, Kenya on Kenya Airways passengers flying out of the airport. The population of the study was 920 passengers flying on five flights and a sample of twenty percent has been used which is 350 passengers. Stratified random sampling was used because Kenya Airways operates flights with two classes of travel, premier and business classes, and are cached into two different waiting lounges.

Data collection was through questionnaires given to passengers as they arrived and waited boarding at the departure lounges. Secondary data was sourced from IATA and Msafiri magazine of Kenya Airways. The collected data was analysed using descriptive statistics and presented using tables and charts and after its analysis, the findings were that cultural, social, personal, psychological and situational factors influence consumers choice of airline to fly with.