Consumer Responses to Service Failure Events in Strategic Airline Alliances: a Justice Theory Perspective

In the past decade service firms have committed significant resources to operational aspects of collaborative business arrangements such as strategic alliances. Yet, there is little research on consumer responses to service failures in settings that involve multiple organizations in the service provision. The current investigation addresses this critical issue in the strategic airline alliance context. Analyzing in-depth interviews with business travelers in Hong Kong, and results of experiments with students in the United States and frequent business travelers from the Asia-Pacific region, it is suggested that consumer responses differ significantly, depending on which alliance entity is evaluated (home carrier, partner airline, alliance). Identification of consumers with a particular airline, the mood they are in prior the service encounter, and which alliance airline caused the service failure emerged as important factors influencing consumer responses. These findings provide important insights on the differential impacts of service failures in multiple service provider settings, and should be especially useful for airline, marketing, and alliance executives.