Discrepancy between perceived satisfaction and expected satisfaction.
Evaluating passengers’ satisfaction can be very difficult. As Gourdin and
Kloppenborg(1991) comment, word of mouth communication, personal needs, and
part experience would result in different expected services of customers. As for
passengers’ expectations, they could simply be the courtesy of staff such as customs
and immigration bureau staff, the total time of service (check-in process, customs
inspection, immigration process, and ticketing), availability of facilities (lifts,
conveyors and moving walkways), availability of information display for flights, and
the distance and service in case of flight delay (Chou, 2012). When evaluating the
satisfaction of an airport, it is also vital to understand the gap between how travelers’
receive the service and how they experience it. Tsai et al (2011) suggest that
customers evaluate service through not only their perceptions and quality of the
service but also their experiences of the service. Gourdin and Kloppenborg (1991)
assume that if there is a difference between customers’ expected services and
perceived service, the customers’ satisfaction will result in either positive image or
negative image. Travelers may have assumption about how they believe the service
should be like to satisfy their needs. Nevertheless, sometimes real service they receive
could be far different from their imagination. Tsai et al (2011) emphasize that
“customer perceptions are subjective assessments of actual service experiences;
customer expectations are beliefs about service delivery that function as reference or
ideal points against which performance is evaluated” (p.1026). As Gourdin and
Kloppenborg (1991) state, besides customers’ perceived service, service delivery,
external communications to consumers, translation of perceptions into service quality
specifications, and management perceptions of consumer expectations can lead to the
gap between customers’ expected services and perceived service. Tsai et al (2011)
explain that in order to fulfill travelers’ satisfaction, service providers try to close the
gap between travelers’ perceived and expected service quality. Therefore, it seems to
be necessary to understand the travelers’ expected service and perceived service
before evaluating their satisfaction of an airport.