A Holistic Analysis of Factors Affecting the Success of Airlines During the Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic increased the risk of financial distress and/or bankruptcy in the airline industry. Whether airlines can survive or not during/after the pandemic is closely related to their decisions and actions which will enable their success by increasing their resilience. In crisis periods such as Covid-19, the decisions taken by airlines are strategically important for achieving sustainable success. Thus, understanding which factors are more important for airlines to shape their actions and make correct decisions are extremely critical. In this context, we investigated the sustainable success factors that airlines should focus on to provide resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. We provide a robust model using the interval type-2 fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (IT2FAHP) and interval type-2 fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (IT2FDEMATEL) for identifying and ranking success factors. The findings indicate that financial and operational factors are extremely important to ensure resilience for airlines. In addition, the results of the study reveal that operational factors and information sharing factors have an impact on financial factors and customer satisfaction.