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Submit a Trip Report"Success" as defined by the airline business is an exceedingly slippery, almost mercurial thing to reckon. In the movie industry, it is generally understood that the more seats you can fill with people is directly related a film's success. It seems like the opposite is true for the airline industry. Back in 1999, when every holiday set new records for airline seats sold, the industry treated their customer base so poorly that Congress had to intervene and make the airlines take a pledge (albeit a largely hollow one) to do better.
The dramatic downturn in air travel after September 11 changed everything, bringing a very different set of problems to bear. But now, almost six years later, records set for seats sold and filled are once again being broken - and according to the just-released 2006 Airline Quality Report (AQR), which covers airline performance for 2005, the airline industry once again seems unprepared or unwilling to deal with this kind of success.
The Airline Quality Report (AQR) is essentially an attempt to assign a single numerical quality rating to the heaps of discreet data found in the monthly Air Travel Consumer Report issued by the Department of Transportation. An airline's final rating depends on four parameters: On-time Performance, Denied Boardings, Mishandled Baggage, and Customer Complaints from 12 categories, including flight problems, fares, refunds, customer service, advertising, discrimination, and others.
How Are They Doing? Lowest Overall Score in Five Years
Air travel volume is booming like it's 1999, and yet profits are down, several airlines are headed for/in/just out of bankruptcy, and customer satisfaction is bottoming out once again, according to the report.
In 2005, all airlines (with one exception) declined in overall quality - and the sole airline that did improve, ComAir, was ranked next to last at 16 out of 17 anyway, so went from something like atrocious to merely awful. With the entire industry faring worse in every category, even those who fared best overall have some serious problems.
Top Two Overall Rank Near Bottom in On-Time Ratings
JetBlue scratched and clawed its way to the top spot in the study, with AirTran not far behind in the second spot. As a result JetBlue is earning all the headlines and accolades - but let's drill down into the data.
Here's one to consider: when it comes to on-time ratings, JetBlue and AirTran currently rank 15th and 16th of 17, respectively.
In a year of declining on-time performance overall, that is not a great stat. And still somehow JetBlue and AirTran lead not only leads the AQR rankings, but still finds a soft spot in the hearts of many business travelers, who of all groups would seem likely to rank on-time performance quite high - Entrepreneur magazine ranked them in a tie for best airline in its Annual Business Travel Awards.
So how did these two get to the top of the overall ratings? JetBlue recovers a lot of ground in the "Denied Boarding/Overbooking" category, with exactly zero involuntary denied boardings for the year (they had seven "voluntary" denied boardings according to the DOT). AirTran placed third in this category; not too shabby.
On mishandled bags, AirTran had the best showing, with JetBlue third best behind now defunct Independence Air. As for consumer complaints, JetBlue trailed only Southwest for lowest number per 10,000 passengers.
So a few minutes here and there don't seem to matter to either the data-crunchers or the road warriors. Give us reliable seats at reliable prices with fewer hassles, and we'll love you best.
The Downside
So if JetBlue is so good at what they do otherwise, what is with all the flight delays?
It turns out that airline rankings depend quite a bit on airport rankings; JetBlue's on-time percentage of just over 71% mirrors that of their hub, JFK Airport over the past few months, as shown in the Air Travel Consumer Report. For all of the dozens of airlines flying in and out of JFK, the odds that you will be delayed hover right above 70% . JetBlue's real weakness? Location, location, location.
And what about the worst performer, Atlantic Southeast? The airline's real bugaboos are baggage handling and overbooking - with baggage handling being the real wrench in the machine. Atlantic Southeast, which is a Delta Connection carrier, mishandled 17.41 of every 1,000 bags last year; and in December-January 2004-05 mishandled over 25 to 28 or so of every 1,000 bags. You almost have to try to be that bad. The problem also extends to parent Delta Airlines, whose baggage record plays worse than the industry average.