| Summary: | Operating in an energy intensive industry, airlines’ environmental performance
is under constant scrutiny of the regulators and authorities. By contrast, it
seems that not many airlines have considered gaining competitive advantage in
by differentiating as an environmentally responsible carrier. The
commissioning company for this Master’s Thesis was Finnair, and the intention
of this study was to find out whether factors related to environmental
responsibility affect Swedish airline passengers’ intentions to purchase from an
airline. In addition, the study intended to offer Finnair suggestions for a
suitable sustainability marketing-mix that could be used to target the intended
consumer segments with an environmentally responsible air travel.
The theoretical framework was built on a modified Ajzen’s Theory of
Planned Behavior (TPB), which assessed the airline passengers intended
purchase behavior by their attitudes towards pro-environmental behavior
(PEB), past purchase behavior related to PEB, perceived behavioral control and
self-identity with regard to PEB. The results of this study show that
environmental responsibility is not the primary driver for most of the airline
passengers in their intention to purchase from an airline. Moreover, the
respondents seemed not to acknowledge the determining association between
environmentally sustainable flying and flying with a modern fleet. Finally, the
results also indicated that the brand recognition increased the respondents’
perception of the airline’s environmental performance.
Finnair should diffuse the theme of environmentally responsible flying in
its promotion campaigns on their fleet renewal with explicit messages
communicating consumers about the interconnection between environmentally
responsible flying and modern fleet. Finnair’s Frequent Flyer program would
be a feasible channel to engage the environmentally conscious Swedish airline
passengers to use the shortest flight routes from Sweden to Asia with Finnair’s
modern eco-efficient aircraft.
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