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Dubai’s aviation industry is one of the most leading global aviation centers with a customer centric focus and tremendous challenges. The purpose of this paper is to determine the main Airport service quality (ASQ) drivers and evaluate the perception of travelers of Dubai International Airport (DXB) terminal 3.

Travelers’ feedback is captured through interviews, initial survey and online review, and a more focused survey is developed as the main research tool. A hypothetical model is proposed and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). The sample includes 275 passengers who had experience with DXB services.

The CFA supported by SEM was used and reveled check-in, assurance and empathy, and availability to some extent as the main constructs influencing travelers’ satisfaction and impression of DXB. Moreover, Kruskal–Wallis test suggested that nationality impact travelers’ experience of the airport. The study stresses the need to consider differences in perceptions among different travelers’ groups with different ethnical backgrounds.

The external validity of the results can be enhanced by including more terminals and larger sample size. Terminal 3 is administered by one company and provide services for one airline. Focusing on terminal 3 only improves the internal validity of this study but limits the external one.

Decision makers can use the findings to improve travelers’ experience at airport. For example, customizing services for certain groups can improve experience of travelers significantly.

Based on the surveyed literature, there is little information or guidance on how to cluster constructs that best describe passengers’ journey in airports. Second, there are some conflicting results regarding the impact of nationalities and purpose of travel on travelers’ satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to address the two gaps and identify factors that influence ASQ at DXB terminal 3. The investigation would help DXB management to understand what makes travelers satisfied during their journey at the airport.