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Save/ShareThe airlines turned in their best overall performance in four years in an annual quality ranking survey. The researchers used government data on flight delays, baggage mishandling, and consumer complaints to crunch their numbers. (You can read the full report as a PDF.)
Hawaiian Airlines topped the list for the most on-time arrivals. American Airlines was at the bottom. In American's defense, it flies to a lot more destinations and through a lot more poor weather conditions than Hawaiian does. On the other hand, American's rating was hard hit by the FAA order last year that it ground hundreds of planes for additional mechanical inspection.
AirTran did the best job of delivering bags to their destination, while American Eagle mishandled the most bags of the 17 airlines surveyed. As consumer advocates, we'd like to point out that both airlines have added fees for checking bags in the past year. Both Airtran and American Eagle charge $15 for the first checked bag and $25 for the second. Imagine if you paid a fee and your bag STILL got lost. You would be furious, right? Even worse, the airlines don't automatically refund the fee to you in cases where you bags are mishandled. But you deserve that fee to be refunded. Be sure to demand your money back, if your bag is unfortunately lost.
JetBlue Airways bumped the fewest number of passengers off of flights for the second year in a row. In contrast, Atlantic Southeast Airlines had the most overbooked planes. It bumped one out of every 3,000 of its customers(!)
Overall, the airlines did a much better job of not overbooking their planes, and that's not just because the recession reduced the number of passengers flying late last year. In April 2008, the government doubled the amount of money that passengers can demand if they get involuntarily bumped from a plane. It's now up to $800 if you aren't re-booked onto another flight out after four hours on most long-haul flights. And airlines don't want to reimburse customers that much cash, so they've been much more cautious about booking their planes than in the past.
Southwest Airlines had the fewest gripes from travelers last year, according to the government, while US Airways had the most upset passengers. Some people may be surprised that a low cost carrier could deliver the highest quality service. US Airways can partly blame its high customer-dissatisfaction rate on its struggle to integrate its crew and equipment with America West's crew and equipment. It also made an unsuccessful bid to charge for sodas last year that lost it a lot of customer goodwill. We ought to point out that US Airways made dramatic improvements in its baggage delivery and on-time flight performances, especially at its Philadelphia hub. The future looks up for the airline's rankings.
Overall, this survey is good news for United Airlines, which used to have the most complaints but has improved a lot in the past year and performed better than US Airways. Delta's ranking, on the other hand, barely budged.
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Anmerican Airlines uses old and uncomfortable planes for its routes to South America but it is usualy on time
Posted By m.baier on April 6, 2009, 10:13 PM
I have just suffered the most miserable experience with Delta. While airline staff everywhere tend to be uncaring, irritable and clueless, Delta's customer service is exceptionally bad. I'll never fly with them again.
Posted By L. Raisanen on April 13, 2009, 7:47 PM
I flew Usairways to Europe a couple of years ago and was not excited, but was ok and I saved some money with them. However, I just tried them again this month and it was a horrible experience. Never again, not worth the savings anymore. They kept anouncing the flight delay 1 hour at a time, and it ended up being almost 6 hours late, which did not make me happy after flying almost 10 hours from Barcelona to connect in Philly into Orlando. The airport in Philly is not structured to handle that many flights, and both times the plane was in the runway, it had to wait more than an hour just for the authorization for taking off. There were 34 planes waiting in line. Very exhausting. The cabins were dirty, little things broken (such as window slatch, earphone outlet, etc...) made me wonder how well maintained the mechanics are. The flight attendants looked like they just got out of bed, and one of them tried to keep my change when I bought a tiny bottle of wine for $7.00. She had kind of an attitude when I asked for it before the plane landed. I am not cheap, but again, I did not think they deserved a $13.00 tip out of a $7.00 purchase. USAIRWAYS NEVER AGAIN. Not even for free. That was the worst money I ever saved.
Posted By Artur on June 17, 2009, 10:05 AM
I just had a flight from american Airlines. They chargedme 15$ for luggage, was four hours behind schedule due to weather AND (here's the kicker) a water leak from a COFFEE MACHINE. What did they do? decided the headphones would be free even though they told us if we had our own headphones they'd work JUST fine to. So I was in th back of the plane, and when the snacks came around EVERYTHING had been bought besides potatoe chips and trail mix and you had to pay for them. it was a 5 1/2 hour flight and I didn't want to be THIRSTY the whole time from potatoe chips and trail mix is HARDLY substantial. They had sold all the boston carvers and salads. They need to overstock just in case.
My usual carrier? southwest. Doesnt charge for bags. Have a friendly (and while corny) joke-telling staff, have free snacks, and are rather on time.
In all. I'm NEVER going to fly American Airlines again. They need to get their things together. Maybe not CHARGE for everything Iwould have beenhappier then.
Posted By Lyn on June 23, 2009, 2:20 PM
vueling, the spenish airlines is the worst airline i ever used. Mainly the crews were such rude people. Can u imagine that one of them said to me: SHUT UP, when i complained about his colleague and her unprofessional language. I advice every one not to take this airline
Posted By amouria on July 28, 2009, 4:33 PM
My vote for worst U.S. Airline has to be Spirit Airlines. I flew from New York-LaGuardia to Detroit Metro in late August 2004. Their section of the Central Terminal at LaGuardia was stiffling hot. The reason? It was not the day to operate the air conditioning! They gate-checked our luggage while allowing passengers ahead of us to bring "body bag" sized luggage onboard. The seat pitch was nearly non-existent. My wife is only 5'1" tall and her knees were mere inches away from the back of the seat in front of her. They wanted to make us split a 12-oz soda. They "misplaced" our luggage at Detroit. At least they found it. The landing on the return trip was very hard! Needless to say I will not fly Spirit again!
Posted By Jeff on October 13, 2009, 4:40 PM
Southwest manages to amaze me every trip. Orlando to Manchester NH with a stop in Baltimore with bad weather in Bartimore and the flight was still 10 min early
Posted By C Bailey on October 20, 2009, 7:13 AM