A hybrid approach based on fuzzy AHP and 2-tuple fuzzy linguistic method for evaluation in-flight service quality

The in-flight service is one of the most important parts in the whole air travel service process. In order to better understand the passengers' preference and obtain their perception for service quality, the paper proposed a hybrid approach based on fuzzy AHP and 2-tuple fuzzy linguistic method to evaluate in-flight service quality. This study is comprised of three stages. In the first stage, the modified version of SERVQUAL instrument was used and a hierarchy of the evaluation index system for in-flight service quality was constructed. In the second stage we use fuzzy AHP to analyze the structure of the in-flight service evaluation problem. Using linguistic variables, pairwise comparisons for evaluation criteria and sub-criteria are made to determine the weights of criteria and sub-criteria. In the third stage, the ratings of sub-criteria are assessed in linguistic values to express the qualitative evaluation of passengers' subjective opinions, and then the linguistic values are transformed into 2-tuples and the 2-tuple linguistic arithmetic mean operator is utilized to obtain the average ratings of 100 respondents. Using the 2-tuple linguistic weighted average operator to compute the aggregated ratings of criteria and the overall in-flight service quality of alternatives. Finally, we demonstrated the validity and feasibility of the proposed approach by conducting an application study of the comprehensive performance of three airlines' in-flight service quality in China. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.