A Study on the Awareness and Consideration Sets in Relation to Employers in Air Transportation Sector

This study identifies the awareness and consideration sets for the aviation companies operating in different fields of air transportation and the factors influencing the sizes of such sets. A two-stage study was conducted with the students from the Aviation Management and Civil Air Transportation Management Departments of Turkish universities through online survey. First, the awareness sets for five different types of aviation companies in Turkey were formed. Then, the consideration set was formed by listing and asking the students to specify the companies that they might want to work with. It is found that potential employers for air transportation companies, have a more favorable opinion of the airline companies and the awareness set size is the greatest for this company type. Significant relationships between both the internship status and education program of the students and the awareness set size is identified. Top five companies in the consideration are identified as airlines and airport/terminal companies. It is found that the size of the consideration set differed based on the education program of students. The study is a pioneer in applying the set theory to employer branding context and investigating the awareness and consideration sets for the employers in air transportation industry.