Unleashing the Power of User Reviews: Exploring Airline Choices at
  Catania Airport, Italy
Vincenzo Miracula Antonio Picone
This study aims to investigate the possible relationship between the
mechanisms of social influence and the choice of airline, through the use of
new tools, with the aim of understanding whether they can contribute to a
better understanding of the factors influencing the decisions of consumers in
the aviation sector. We have chosen to extract user reviews from well-known
platforms: Trustpilot, Google, and Twitter. By combining web scraping
techniques, we have been able to collect a comprehensive dataset comprising a
wide range of user opinions, feedback, and ratings. We then refined the BERT
model to focus on insightful sentiment in the context of airline reviews.
Through our analysis, we observed an intriguing trend of average negative
sentiment scores across various airlines, giving us deeper insight into the
dynamics between airlines and helping us identify key partnerships, popular
routes, and airlines that play a central role in the aeronautical ecosystem of
Catania airport during the specified period. Our investigation led us to find
that, despite an airline having received prestigious awards as a low-cost
leader in Europe for two consecutive years 2021 and 2022, the "Catanese" user
tends to suffer the dominant position of other companies. Understanding the
impact of positive reviews and leveraging sentiment analysis can help airlines
improve their reputation, attract more customers, and ultimately gain a
competitive edge in the marketplace.