Assessing the LCC websites quality

Abstract

The airline industry has been witness to increased additional turbulence as a result of the entry of airlines adopting new business models referred to as Low Cost Carriers (LCC), no-frills airlines or budget carriers. Whereas some budget carriers, such as Southwest airlines, have been competing in the US market for over 30 years, they have only been flourishing in Europe for the last 10 years and are at an early development stage in the Middle East, Asia Pacific and the rest of the world. This has accelerated customer acceptance of the Internet as a suitable medium for booking airline travel. Therefore, Web site quality is now considered a critical factor to attract customers' attention and build loyalty. This paper presents a modified assessment model to assist Middle Eastern LCC companies in evaluating their websites by examining it against four main categories that include 36 evaluation factors. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.