Assessment of Travel Experiences of Passengers at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, Nigeria

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of travel experiences of passengers navigating NNAMDI Azikiwe International Airport in Nigeria. Unless airlines, airports and the aviation industry are aware of a specific important dimension of airport services that travelers may face challenges along their journey, it’s difficult to provide substantial support to meet their needs in transiting through the airport. The research design used the TripAdvisor. com website to obtain the data based on travelers’ electronic word of mouth. The theoretical foundation of this paper is based on applying the service-escape framework. The results show that travelers have been experiencing travel flight delay, flight information, staff discourtesy and staff training issues along their journey. This study used available information based on travelers who are members of the popular TripAdvisor travel websites. There may be other travelers who have experienced various challenges transiting the airports, which might not have been explored. These unexplored challenges might have been found useful by the researchers for analysis to add insight to the airline and airport operators to fully understand the challenges their travelers are face. This study is limited to finding an important dimension to further suggest appropriate technologies or strategies addressing the identified challenges. The present study offers insights into the challenges travelers face at various stages of their journey through check-in, security screening, pre-flight, boarding and in-flight services. These findings have an important implication specifically to airport operators. The findings may help the airline industry understand their staff behavior while interacting with passengers, as findings show poor staff behavior and a lack of expertise to handle travelers. This finding may further help airline and airport operators address these challenges to effectively and efficiently offer required support to their potential travelers transiting through the airport. This research has not been published elsewhere using the Trip Advisor websites before submitting this article.