In airports you often have little choice as a consumer as to which airports you use - assuming of course that you need to go to or from a specific destination. JD Power and Associates recently released their airport rankings for 2008 - can be found here - and it brings up a couple of interesting questions.
What motivations are there for an airport itself to have high customer satisfaction ratings? Presumably most consumers direct their frustration and satisfaction towards airlines themselves, not actual airports. There may be better parking or amenities at various airports, but they all provide the same basic services to the end consumer. Everyone knows that some airports are worse than others in terms of volume and delays (think Heathrow), but do we need to measure our satisfaction at airports?
I think a more relative study on customer satisfaction at airports would be with the actual airport customers - the airlines. The landing and gate fees are what largely funds airport operations and allow airlines to maintain kiosks and operations at a specific site.
The value for money, or services, that they receive at different airports based on what they pay - which I am going to hope they are tracking - would provide an interesting insight into how airports treat their customers, not their customer's customers.
All airports could provide an improved level of service, but they to are based on a budget which is largely funded by airlines - and where does their money come from? That's right - the consumer.
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