Research Hypotheses Test Results

As a result of the research hypotheses test, perceived Safety and service quality showed a strong influence on image and customer loyalty. However, the hypothesis of the intermediate variable action of perceived Price constructed in Model 2 was not adopted. The results demonstrate that Price has an impact on image, and image has a small impact on customer loyalty. In addition, unlike the hypotheses constructed with reference to other papers at the beginning, it was found that the influence of perceived Safety and service quality was greater than image in having a direct impact on customer loyalty.

Coefficients^a

a. Dependent Variable: Image

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Table 29: Results of Hypotheses Testing Hypothetical scheme

H1:Perceived Safety will directly affect customer loyalty.

Positive (+)

H2: Service quality will directly affect

customer loyalty. Positive (+)

H3:Perceived Safety will affect image and that image will affect customer loyalty.

Positive (+)

H4:Service quality will affect image and that image will affect customer loyalty.

Positive (+)

H5: The positive image of airlines will have

a positive impact on customer loyalty. Positive (+)

H6:Perceived Price will act as an

interference variable in H3. Negative (-) H7: Price will act as an interference variable

in H4

Negative (-)

H8:Price will exist as bridge between

Perceived Safety and image. Positive (+) H9:Price will exist as bridge between service

quality and image.

Positive (+)

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Chapter 5 Conclusion

The purpose of this study is to investigate the reasons for Taiwanese nationals to choose an airline when departing and factors affecting customer loyalty. We conducted a questionnaire survey on people of Taiwanese nationality, constructed a structural equation model, and developed research hypotheses and presented the results.

As a result of verifying the significance of each variable in the final model, all the observational variables considered in this study and the significance levels of the relationships between potential variables were found to be appropriate. However, the standardized factor load rating did not exceed 0.5 because image considers the measurement variables for customer loyalty to be intensive. The measurement variables of Image 4 were less than 0.5, and these measurement variables were excluded. In addition, Cronbach’s α coefficient was 0.883, and reliability of 0.6 or more was proved to be highly reliable. In the study Model 2, the measurement variable for the effect of perceived Safety on loyalty when the perceived Price is an intermediate variable was 0.020 (p <.05), which had a relatively large effect. The effect of service quality on loyalty was also positively affected by p <.001. However, it was concluded that the effect of the image on loyalty, which was set as a core part of the paper, was not influenced by 0.163. To test the reason for this result, we measured the correlation index for these five variables when all variables are correlations. As a result, all correlation indices were high, meaning that they are all affected.

However, in Model 2, the correlation coefficient between image and loyalty was not suitable. The reason is that service quality has the greatest impact on customer loyalty, and perceived Safety also has a large impact on customer loyalty.

In previous studies, the relationship between image and customer loyalty is significant.

However, the structure method in this study was not very influential. To prove the reason, the relationship between image and customer loyalty was studied when the most influential variables, perceived Safety and service quality, did not affect customer loyalty.

As a result, when perceived Safety and service quality have removed the line to customer loyalty in the structural equation, the result has sufficient impact on the image on customer loyalty. Therefore, the reason why image does not affect customer loyalty is established when there are two variables because the value of perceived Safety and service quality is significant in this study.

It can be simply explained as follows. The prediction of service quality to image is moderated by perceived Price: QP(service quality X Perceived Price)=0.113, t=1.839, p = 0.067. The higher the perceived Price, the stronger the prediction is for service quality to image.

Because the coefficient interaction term is positive (=0.113), it has a significant level.

As a result, the effect of perceived Safety on customer loyalty and image, and the impact of service quality on customer loyalty and image, are large. However, the role of intermediate variable for perceived Price of Model 2 constructed in this study was not valid.

The effect of the perceived Price on the image and the effect of the image on customer loyalty are also small. Furthermore, unlike the hypotheses constructed by the researchers, it has been found that the influence of perceived Safety and service quality is greater than image, which directly affects customer loyalty. As a result, Taiwanese nationality has a greater influence on airlines’ perceived Safety and service quality than on the image of airlines.

In addition, it was found that the factors affecting the airline’s customer loyalty were perceived Safety and service quality, not positive image of the company. Perceived Price

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does not act as an interfering variable and can act as an intermediate variable, but it has not been proven to have a significant impact. The previous research found that a positive image of a company is important to improve customer loyalty. However, this study showed that perceived Safety and service quality are more important than positive image in improving customer loyalty.

According to the empirical study results, it can be observed from Model 1 that the passengers’ perceived Safety and service quality will directly affect their loyalty to the airline. At this time, the airline image will not significantly affect a passenger’s loyalty.

Besides, the Price will not interfere with the impacts of the previous two factors on the image of the airline. In Model 2, perceived Safety and service quality can significantly affect

passenger loyalty through the image of the airline. While the previous two factors affect the image of the airline, the Price will not be an intermediary factor. In general, although the airline image will affect passenger loyalty, it is not as significant as perceived Safety and service quality in directly affecting loyalty. Regarding the Price factor, it cannot possess the interference and intermediary effects in the relevant influences of the airline’s image.

Therefore, the study found that the main reason why Taiwanese citizens choose an airline is perceived Safety and service quality related to life, and that perceived Price has an

influence but not a large influence.

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