This study investigates passenger-authored online reviews of airline services using social network analysis to compare the differences in customer perceptions between full service carriers (FSCs) and low cost carriers (LCCs). While deriving words with high frequency and weight matrix based on the text analysis for FSCs and LCCs respectively, we analyze the semantic network (betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, degree centrality) to compare the degree of connection between words in online reviews of each airline types using the social network analysis. Then we compare the words with high frequency and the connection degree to gauge their influences in the network. Moreover, we group eight clusters for FSCs and LCCs using the convergence of iterated correlations (CONCOR) analysis. Using the resultant clusters, we match the clusters to dimensions of two types of service quality models (Grönroos, Brady & Cronin (B&C)) to compare the airline service quality and determine which model fits better. From the semantic network analysis, FSCs are mainly related to inflight service words and LCCs are primarily related to the ground service words. The CONCOR analysis reveals that FSCs are mainly related to the dimension of outcome quality in Grönroos model, but evenly distributed to the dimensions in B&C model. On the other hand, LCCs are primarily related to the dimensions of process quality in both Grönroos and B&C models. From the CONCOR analysis, we also observe that B&C model fits better than Grönroos model for the airline service because the former model can capture passenger perceptions more specifically than the latter model can.

Lee Seung-hee. 2015. “Closings of Calls to an Airline Service”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 23(3). 177~204. In conversation analysis (CA), closings of a conversation are explicated as achievements by parties working through structural problems of coordinating a simultaneous exit from the conversation. This paper examines closings of calls to an airline service in Korea using the method of CA. As calls to the airline service are built with an orientation to an expectably single business, resolution of the business at hand－typically a flight reservation－occasions the relevance of closing. Closings of airline service calls are structured into pre-closing and terminal sequences. Agents' announcement of a completion of the reservation, thus of the business at hand, constitutes a pre-closing move. Customers align with the pre-closing move normally by producing an acknowledgement in response. Following pre-closing sequences, agents initiate a terminal sequence by producing a terminal component in a standard format required by the institution. Customers typically respond with an acknowledgement ‘yes’ token, collaboratively achieving a termination. In the achievement of closing sequences, parties orient not only to the particular trajectory of activities and pre-closings they have been engaged in, but also to the particular type of conversation as one of customer service.