Zelalem G/tsadik (PhD)Tiya Gurmecha2026-03-062026-03-062025-08-20https://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/7899This study looks into how different parts of airline service quality affect passenger confidence, focusing on Ethiopian Airlines passengers. It uses ideas from well-known models like SERVQUAL, SERVPERF, and Expectation-Confirmation theory to help explain how passengers’ perceptions of service influence their trust. The research focusses on six airline service quality dimensions: safety and security, timeliness, pricing, facilities, sales promotions, and information communication technology (ICT). It also explores how service culture — which means the shared values and behaviors that guide how employees interact with passengers — plays a role in connecting these service quality aspects to passenger confidence. Using an online survey, the study gathered data from travelers who had flown both domestic and international Ethiopian Airlines flights. After cleaning the data, 245 valid responses were analyzed with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). This study used snowball sampling to expand the participant pool beyond typical reach, which helped increase the response rate; however, this method may introduce some bias and limits the generalizability of the results. The findings show that service culture strongly impacts passenger confidence. Among the direct effects of service quality on confidence, only safety and security stood out as significantly positive. Other factors like timeliness, pricing, facilities, ICT, and sales promotions did not have a clear direct impact. When it comes to influencing service culture itself, sales promotions, ICT, facilities, and safety and security all had meaningful positive effects, while timeliness and pricing did not. Looking deeper at indirect effects, the study found that sales promotions, ICT, safety and security, and facilities all increase passenger confidence by first enhancing service culture. Pricing and timeliness did not have significant indirect effects. In general, the study suggests that while safety and security directly help build trust, many other service quality factors work mainly by shaping a strong service culture, which then increases passenger confidence. Strengthening this culture within the airline can amplify the benefits of promotions, technology, facilities, and safety efforts. This research also adds valuable insight to the theoretical understanding of airline service quality within the African context, enhancing the academic literature on factors that influence passenger confidence across both domestic and international flightsenThesis