Lufthansa have announced that they plan to stop offering most flights inside Germany and Europe under the name Lufthansa and would instead offer them via its subsidiary German wings. When that happens, the service offeried to passengers changes from what Lufthansa provides to what German wings provides: no longer does everyone get a free newspaper, two free drinks and a snack, and passengers must now pay for one piece of luggage. On German wings flights, these will be options the customer can book in advance and for which they will need to pay extra. This leads us to a major criticism of airlines: that they have created a bundle of services and options in order to apparently give the customer more flexibility, but that what this means in practice is that once several options are actually booked, a flight becomes more expensive than the highly visible price shown on the home page of airline websites. People complain about feeling lost when booking a flight because of hidden costs and unclear price structures. Sometimes they do not understand why paying for one option means getting a different one for free, even if the latter is not interesting for them.\n\nBooking a ticket is a service offered by an airline. In a digitalized world, where you can send and receive an email in a minute, where everybody can place a complaint on a blog and reach millions in a minute, customer service has become more important and even harder. CustomersÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ power to influence a companyÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢s success has as a consequence increased, which makes the area of service especially vital. So the question is: what can an airline do in these times to guarantee sustainable customer service?\n\nThis paper analyses what customers perceive as a good quality service of airlines in the long-termÃ?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å?therefore sustainable Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? and why they would rather stick with one company rather than with a different one. What do airlines need to be aware of when they create business concepts for online bookers, where the customer has a great choice and relatively easy access to information about all possible offers? And learning about the preferences Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? how can airlines transform that knowledge into a success strategy?
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