Data-driven insights: Assessment of airline ancillary services

Abstract

Airlines increasingly rely on ancillary service fees for revenue generation. As a result, many ancillary services have been conceived and implemented. However, each customer does not desire to purchase every ancillary service. This research examines the heterogeneity among U.S. international airline passengers and their willingness to pay for assorted ancillary services. Antecedents to purchase intention and actual purchase behavior were evaluated using Amazon Mechanical Turk for data collection. Our results show that there are differences in airline passenger preferences when purchasing ancillary services on international flights. The number of times a passenger flies in a year and the reason for travel are found to be consistently significant. Occasionally, age and income are found to be significant. These findings will be very useful to airline marketing executives and could help to assure consumers receive the services they want at the price levels they are willing to pay.