The concept of developing the Airline Quality Rating (AQR) originated with Dr. Brent Bowen, Director of Aviation Management, W. Frank Barton School of Business and Director of the Center for Aviation Management Research at the National Institute for Aviation Research, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas. The Airline Quality Rating methodology was developed by Bowen in association with Dr. Dean Headley, Assistant Professor of Marketing, W. Frank Barton School of Business, and Ms. Jacqueline Luedtke, Business Manager of the National Institute for Aviation Research. Developmental procedures involved identifying a substantial list of potential quality factors through extensive literature search, discussions with experts from airline associations, government agencies, each of the ten U .S.-based major airlines, and a variety of other related sources. These efforts were aimed at discovering relevant, quantifiable, reliable factors for the development of an Airline Quality Rating scale. Factors considered for inclusion must be quantifiable and regularly available for each of the ten major domestic airlines currently operating in the U.S. Final factors for the AQR were reviewed by a group of 65 experts and validated as to their importance for inclusion in an Airline Quality Rating scale