Budget airline consumers more satisfied in 2018

Scoot's consumer satisfaction saw the highest score of 75.3 in a study.

Budget airlines are flying more satisfied customers in 2018 as it improved by 2.7% YoY to get a score of 73.1 out of 100 in the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) by the Institute of Service Excellence (ISE) at Singapore Management University (SMU). With this, it has buoyed the air transport sector's improvement of 1.4ppt to 75.4 points.

Sealing its third consecutive annual score increase in the index, budget airlines have managed to narrow down the difference of their customer satisfaction compared to those of full-service airlines and budget airlines to just 1.9% from 7.2% in 2014.

Scoot saw the highest score of 75.3 amongst budget airlines as it improved by 3.5 ppt from its score of 71.8. This was followed by Jetstar Asia which inched up by 0.4 ppt to 72.4 and AirAsia which rose 0.6 ppt to 72.2. 

The study also found that the likelihood to repurchase of budget airline customers surpassed that of full-service airline customers for the first time in five years.

“This suggests budget Airlines, beyond using price as a lever, have been successful in shaping what travellers deem to be a high-quality mode for air travel,” ISE executive director Neeta Lachmandas said.

The index found that the scores for airport and full-service airlines remained unchanged with scores of 78 points and 74.5 points, respectively.

For full service, airlines, Singapore Airlines performed above average as it improved by 0.6 ppt to get a score of 78.1. Meanwhile, SilkAir's score inched up 0.3 to 73.1.

Amongst the factors that the study looked into are customers' perception on the comfort of the journey, the ability of the airline to accommodate their needs, the airline staff, the brand image, and the condition of the cabin.