In July 2017, passengers aboard two Air Transat flights were diverted to Ottawa. While the airline had no control over the diversion itself, they had a responsibility for the fair treatment of their passengers’ end destination. Yet, passengers reported being stranded on the tarmac for over four hours, on one flight without any food, air conditioning, or water. This incident caused at least one passengers to call Law Enforcement in an effort to force the airline to act.

Following the incident, the airline was fined and held responsible by the Canadian Transportation Agency. During the hearing, however, customers and the media noted** that the airline and airport constantly came up with excuses and tried to blame each other, which led customers to say that they will not fly with Air Transat again.

Lesson to learn

Air Transat didn’t just make a mistake when they failed to provide comfort and necessities to their customers during the unexpected delay on the tarmac. They failed to take responsibility for their actions or make proper amends with their customers. Mistakes and incidents can happen to any business, but how they respond to the incidents and treat their customers will have a lasting impact. Refusing to accept responsibility or focusing solely on the bottom line to the detriment of the customers can cause serious harm to your brand.

2.1     Customer-defined standards refer to operational standards based on pivotal consumer specifications that are visible to and measured by consumers. There are three customer-defined standards that can be identified, namely hard customer-defined standards, soft customer-defined standards and one-time fixes. Explain each customer-defined standard and provide an example of each for Air Transat.                                              

2.2     Name the first two steps in the setting of customer-defined service standards and apply it to Air Transat.     

2.3     Service quality can be analysed by using theGAPS-model. Discuss the knowledge gap AND provide a suitable example for Air Transat

2.4   Identify an alternative to the SERVQUAL measurement tool, which Air Transat can use to determine their quality of service.