From Cabin Service to Adaptive Care: Human-Digital Frontline Capability as a New Paradigm of Sustainable and Resilient Airline Service Quality

Abstract

This article develops a frontline-centered theory of sustainable and resilient airline service quality. It addresses a persistent blind spot in airline service research: operational systems, digital platforms, sustainability programs, and passenger-facing encounters are often studied as separate domains, even though frontline employees must translate them into one coherent passenger experience. The study uses qualitative documentary research through a critical integrative review and theory-building synthesis. Peer-reviewed work published primarily during 2021–2025 on airline service quality, cabin-crew service, digitalization, self-service, recovery, organizational resilience, sustainable aviation, and passenger behavior was interpreted alongside official IATA and ICAO context. The corpus was theoretically sampled rather than treated as an exhaustive systematic review. Documentary coding focused on the conversion process between backstage capability and passenger-experienced value: sensing, interpretation, coordination, explanation, escalation, recovery, and learning. The synthesis proposes Frontline-Enabled Sustainable–Resilient Airline Service Quality (F-SRASQ), organized around six mutually reinforcing capabilities: anticipatory care; human–digital orchestration; inclusive dignity; sustainable service delivery; recovery justice; and crew adaptive capacity, with organizational learning as a cross-cutting feedback mechanism. The article introduces the “frontline conversion layer” as a meso-level bridge between airline operations and passenger evaluations and specifies boundary conditions, failure signals, and measurable indicators that distinguish resilient service from simple recovery speed and sustainable quality from symbolic environmental communication.