This study explores whether customer dissatisfaction regarding airlines service follows the learning curve pattern, specifically whether organizations learn to reduce customer dissatisfaction. Drawing from the litrature on learning curves and organizational learning, the authors formulate three hypotheses on customer dissatisfaction. Testing the hypotheses using quarterly data on consumer complaints against the 10 largest U.S. airlines, strong support is found for the following: Customer dissatisfaction follows a U-shaped function of operating experience. Organizational learning curves for customer dissatisfaction are heterogeneous across airlines. Although the hypothesis that focused airlines learn faster to reduce customer dissatisfaction than full service airlines has not been supported, there is evidence that the best focused airline learns faster than the best full service airline.
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