The Relationship of Service Failure Attributions, Service Recovery Justice and Recovery Satisfaction in the Context of Airlines

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of failure attributions (stability and controllability) and service recovery justice (i.e. distributive justice, interactional justice, and procedural justice) to recovery satisfaction and the moderating relationship of service recovery justice on the link between failure attributions and recovery satisfaction in the context of airline. Data were gathered by means of a survey from airline passengers who experienced a service failure and subsequently a service recovery within the past year. The findings of this study suggest that stability and controllability have a negative relationship with recovery satisfaction. The results also indicate that distributive and procedural justices have a positive relationship with recovery satisfaction. Additionally, the results found that among service recovery justice dimensions, only distributive and procedural justice moderate the relationship between stability and recovery satisfaction. Moreover, only procedural satisfaction moderates the relationship between controllability and recovery satisfaction. Managerial implications of these findings are briefly discussed.