Report Says Airline Service Has Suffered

People are boarding planes as often as they did before the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings — and complaints about airline service are growing as well, says an annual survey of carrier quality.

The year 2000 was the high watermark for flight delays, cancellations and seething passengers left stranded in terminals.

"We've got the same problems we had five years ago," said Dean Headley, a co-author of the study and associate professor at Wichita State University in Kansas.

Customers' biggest gripe is likely to be lost baggage.

Complaints increased 17 percent last year over 2004 and the rate of mishandled baggage jumped from 4.83 per 1,000 passengers to 6.06 in 2005.

Intense competition from low-fare airlines and high jet-fuel prices have forced many established carriers to cut back or charge passengers for amenities.

Many airlines no longer serve meals on flights. Some charge for pillows. And there's a price now for overweight or extra bags.

"Airlines know their consumers," Headley said. "I'm not sure they know how far they can push them."

David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association that represents most U.S. carriers, said airlines know their service has suffered and they're trying to improve it.

"They're trying their best," he said. "They're taking advantage of technology to make the airport experience more pleasant."

Airlines have installed ticketing kiosks and machines that read boarding passes at the gates, and they've added flight delay information to their Web sites, Castelveter said.

But airlines don't have control over all the things that annoy passengers, the industry spokesman added.

"They're dealing with weather delays, air traffic control delays and new security measures," he said. "You've got airplanes misconnecting, passengers misconnecting and baggage misconnecting. That all translates into unhappy passengers."

The Airline Quality Rating study is based on Transportation Department statistics for airlines that carry at least 1 percent of the passengers who flew domestically last year. It's sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Omaha's aviation institute and Wichita State.

The AQR added two regional carriers — Comair and SkyWest — into this year’s ratings.
“We have a lot more airlines now partly due to the system coming back to full capacity,” Headley said. “The low-fare carriers particularly took advantage of the lull we had the last few years. Five years ago, low-fare carriers had a 5 to 7 percent market share. Today, the low-fare airlines have a 25 percent share.”

The complete AQR ranking for the 16 largest airlines for 2004:
1) Jet Blue,
2) AirTran,
3) Southwest,
4) United,
5) Alaska Airlines,
6) America West,
7) Northwest,
8) American,
9) Continental,
10) ATA,
11) Delta,
12) US Air,
13) American Eagle,
14) SkyWest,
15) Comair and
16) Atlantic Southeast.

http://www.aqr.aero/pressreleases/2005pressrelease.htm

A report didn't need to tell me this. AA gives you nothing anymore on there flights not even peanuts where Southwest gives you a free snack box on longer flights along with non-stop drink service and trail mix packs. Yes it’s not a meal but it holds you over on those coast to coast flights. Then take jetBlue, free TV, extra leg room in the back, front and back boarding and deplaning at certain cities. AirTran is probably the best thing to happen to ATL since sliced bread.

I think next year you'll see some changes as far as rank. I believe US will move up the ranks closer to number 1 while jetBlue I believe will fall off since their on time performance has been so bad. Ask any traveler the one thing that sticks out in their mind is whether or not they got their on-time.

I've also found that inflight service, and overall flight crew "willingness" to please the customer has diminished.

I've ran into many flight crews, or to be more specific flight attendants, who just don't seem happy to be working anymore (in a sense you can't blame them) to where it comes to a point where you feel guilty or even nervous about asking them for something because you don't want to "impose" on them.

I think the biggest problem with almost all the airlines, and namely the legacy carriers it that it seems like they don't value your business anymore.

The airlines thought they could run their operations as they saw fit and make a profit off of it forever. Once the economy took a dive, and people weren't able to afford those $1000 RT tickets from NY to Charlotte (as an example), and the LCC's came in and offered a real solution to the extremely inflated high airfares, the airlines got bit in the ass and are still paying for it.

I saw a Jetblue commerical on Tv last night basically saying that on jetBlue you don't have to be afraid to push the call button, unlike other airlines...