US airlines show improvement in annual study
DALLAS — Airlines are getting better at sticking to their schedules and are losing fewer bags. Their customers seem to be complaining less often.
Those are the findings of an annual report on U.S. airlines’ quality released Monday by researchers at Wichita State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Many passengers may have trouble believing those conclusions, however.
In just the last few days Delta Air Lines suffered a multi-day meltdown — canceling more than 3,000 flights after a oneday storm in Atlanta. And on Monday, United Airlines was in the spotlight after a video showed security agents dragging a man off a plane; he had refused to give up his seat on a flight that United overbooked.
“People don’t look at the numbers,” admitted Dean Headley, a marketing professor at Wichita State and co-author of Monday’s report. “They just know what happened to them, or they hear what happened to other people.”
The researchers used information compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation to rate the airlines for on-time performance, baggage handling, bumping passengers off oversold flights, and complaints filed with the government.
They judged Alaska Airlines to be the best U.S. carrier, followed closely by Delta. Frontier Airlines ranked last, followed by another discount carrier, Spirit Airlines.
The report’s general observations:
The percentage of flights that arrived on time or close to it rose to 81.4 percent in 2016 from 79.9 percent in 2015. Of 12 leading U.S. carriers, only American, JetBlue and Virgin America got worse.
The rate of bags being lost, stolen or delayed fell 17 percent.
Your chances of getting bumped by the airline dropped 18 percent, which doesn’t include people who voluntarily gave up their seat for money or a travel voucher.
The rate of complaints filed with the government dropped about one-fifth, with complaints rising only for Hawaiian and Virgin America.