Airline Customer Complaints During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The unforeseen emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic back in March 2020 made a huge impact both nationally and internationally in Turkey. One of the impacts of this disaster was on transportation services both for goods and passengers. Therefore, the focus of this study was determined to be on airline passengers' satisfaction and complaints in this bothersome period. The aim was to discover the problematic dimensions of the service provided and possibly minimize these incidents both for the sake of the airline companies and the passengers. The content analysis method was utilized, and 125 reviews containing 280 complaints were analyzed. It was discovered that the most criticized SERVQUAL dimension for Turkey-based airlines in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic was reliability. These findings have the potential to guide professionals of passenger transportation services on which practices should be improved.