Complaints against airlines soar during pandemic

ATLANTA — For U.S. airlines in this time of covid-19, the number of flights is down, the number of passengers is down and revenue is definitely down.

One statistic, however, has reached stratospheric levels: the number of complaints filed against carriers.

Last year, the Department of Transportation received 102,550 complaints about air travel compared with 15,342 in 2019.

United Airlines, whose promotions tout friendly skies, was the target of 11,274 grievances. Delta Air Lines was the subject of 3,840 complaints to the department, the vast majority about refunds for canceled flights.

“It’s just unprecedented. There’s nothing you can compare it to,” said Bill McGee, aviation adviser at Consumer Reports.

Airline flight counts in 2020 dropped to the lowest level since federal reporting began in 1987, according to the Transportation Department.

Airlines canceled thousands of flights as the coronavirus spread around the world, and scores of passengers struggled to get refunds when their travel plans were disrupted.

There was a bright spot: Less-crowded skies meant airlines improved their on-time arrival rate to 84.5% in 2020, up from 79% in 2019.

Passenger counts declined significantly starting in March and remained at less than half of normal levels for much of the year.

Passenger counts are still down more than 50% this month, according to data at airport Transportation Security Administration checkpoints.

“This last year has been really difficult,” Delta Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian acknowledged during remarks this week. Even now, “demand still is quite soft,” he said.

Bastian is hopeful for a financial recovery at Atlanta-based Delta later this year as more Americans are vaccinated and domestic travel returns. But, he said, international travel may not meaningfully recover until “maybe spring of ’22.”

Airlines operated about 4.7 million flights in 2020, down from nearly 8 million in 2019, according to the Transportation Department. Atlanta-based ExpressJet, a former Delta Connection regional carrier, shut down entirely Sept. 30.

While the number of complaints to the department is the highest on record, it likely reflects a fraction of the number of travelers frustrated by flight cancellation and refund issues. Many passengers contact their airline but do not file a complaint with the federal government.

Of the passengers filing grievances with the federal agency, 1,789 were against Southwest, the second-largest carrier at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Southwest has historically had a low complaint rate.

Frontier, a smaller low-fare carrier, prompted 5,523 complaints to the department in 2020, giving it the highest complaint rate for the number of passengers carried.