Assessing in-flight meals/food attributes through passengers' level of satisfaction: a case of Malaysia airlines passengers / Nor Khafizah Muhamad Saleh

With the increase in air travel for business and leisure, the flight catering sector of the commercial aviation industry has expanding and becoming more challenge as a competitive business. Due to this competitiveness, in-flight food services besides other services are considering a part of marketing strategies for many of the airlines companies. The in flight food services now are seen as part of the package that attracts business travellers or leisure tourists to a particular airlines. The in-flight meal/ food are also considered important to the airlines company in retaining satisfied and attracting new passengers. This study empirically investigates the in-flight meals/food attributes like (taste, freshness, appearance and menu choice) through passengers' level of satisfaction and their intention of re-flying. Two hundred forty two (242) passengers' of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) from Kuala Lumpur to Frankfurt (Germany) on 10th December 2007 were surveyed. Through series of descriptive (frequencies, mean scores and standard deviation) and inferential statistical (multiple regressions), some useful insight on the passenger views was obtained. Result of revealed Malaysia Airlines through their inflight caterer provides an overall acceptable meals/food and food attributes like taste, freshness, appearance and menu choices significantly contributed to the prediction of the airline passengers' levels of satisfaction. Meals/food although not as important as other elements but contributes to passengers' intention of re-flying. These results signalling the Malaysia Airlines particularly their in-flight caterer to improve at the same time maintain the quality of the in-flight meals / food produced.