Measuring the Benefit of Offering Auxiliary Services: Do Bag-Checkers Differ in Their Sensitivities to Airline Itinerary Attributes?

Abstract

When firms evaluate their service system design choices, there is typically more uncertainty surrounding the value that a particular auxiliary service provides than there is on the cost of providing that service. To help inform this decision, we propose an approach where we compare the relative value of the segment of passengers who use an auxiliary service to the segment that does not use it. We demonstrate this approach for a typical auxiliary service common to the airline industry. In 2008, most U.S. airlines implemented checked baggage fee policies to decrease their costs by reducing the number of customer service agents needed in the check-in and baggage handling processes. The success of this change has led to a current debate at many of these airlines on whether to make further staffing cuts in these areas, essentially making it even less attractive for passengers to check their baggage. Our proposed methodology helps answer whether passengers who continue to check bags in today’s baggage-fee era are more or less valuable than passengers who do not check bags. We explore this question empirically by examining, through a stated preference survey, if a history of checking or not checking bags can be used to segment passengers based on how their itinerary choices are influenced by common airline service attributes (price, number of connections, itinerary time, schedule delay, and on-time performance). Contrary to the opinions of some top airline executives, we find that the passengers who continue to check bags at airlines that charge baggage fees are generally less sensitive to differences in three of these important service attributes and are less likely to switch airlines when a competing airline improves its offerings along these dimensions. Thus, airlines that charge for checked bags should consider improving the customer experience for their bag-checking passengers, as they represent a potentially more valuable segment class to the airline.