Airport service quality (ASQ) plays a central role in shaping passenger satisfaction, airport competitiveness, and the long-term performance of aviation infrastructure systems. Existing studies increasingly recognise airports not merely as service environments but as integrated infrastructure systems in which transportation networks, operational processes, information systems, and passenger-facing functions interact dynamically. However, current knowledge remains fragmented across service domains, evaluation methods, passenger characteristics, and industry benchmarking practices. This study investigates the analytical foundations and research evolution of ASQ from an infrastructure systems perspective. A systematic literature review was conducted following the PRISMA protocol using a Scopus-based corpus of 303 peer-reviewed publications published between 1976 and 2024, supplemented by major industry reports and benchmarking frameworks. The review synthesised evidence across airport service domains, service attributes, and key performance indicators (KPIs), passenger heterogeneity, survey methodologies, social media-based assessment approaches, and the interaction between airline and ASQ. The results showed that ASQ research has evolved from isolated service evaluation toward increasingly integrated and multi-dimensional assessment frameworks. Processing and non-processing service domains were found to exert asymmetric effects on passenger satisfaction, while substantial variations were identified across demographic, behavioural, geographic, and travel-related passenger profiles. The review further showed that industry benchmarking systems provide operational comparability but remain only partially aligned with academic analytical approaches. Several research gaps were identified, particularly in landside infrastructure evaluation, arrival-stage service assessment, integrated objective–subjective performance measurement, and system-level understanding of airport operations. The findings indicate that ASQ should be interpreted as an emergent property of interconnected infrastructure subsystems rather than as isolated service encounters. This study provides an integrated conceptual foundation for future research on intelligent, resilient, and evidence-based airport infrastructure management and supports more transparent and analytically grounded decision-making for airport operators, policymakers, and researchers.
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