United’s quality rating improves, but still ranks low among big carriers

CHICAGO — Despite a handful of high-profile incidents that dominated headlines last year, United Airlines was one of only three carriers to improve on every measure tracked by an annual airline rating.

But United still ranks eighth of 12 — the same spot it held in 2016 — after a year of overall improvement for the industry, according to the Airline Quality Rating report, released Monday.

American Airlines, the other major carrier at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, also improved in all categories, but saw its rank hold steady at ninth.

The report, a joint project of researchers at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Wichita State University, rates 12 major U.S. air carriers on four categories tracked by the U.S. Department of Transportation: on-time performance, baggage handling, customer complaints and the odds of being involuntarily bumped from a flight.

Nine airlines earned higher overall scores in 2017 compared with 2016.

Two of the three that slipped, Alaska Airlines and Delta Air Lines, were already the top-rated pair, with Alaska narrowly edging out Delta.

“The pack is catching up,” Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University, said at a news conference introducing the report.

The report came out exactly one year after a passenger was dragged off a United Express flight from O’Hare to Louisville, Ky., after refusing to give up his seat for airline employees.

The backlash appears to have prompted the biggest change in airlines’ performance: a roughly 45 per cent reduction in the share of passengers bumped from flights against their will.