By Kate Rice
April 02, 2012 10:33 AM
April 02, 2012 10:33 AM
The old cliché that you get what you pay for is coming true with airlines. The latest Airline Quality Rating (AQR) report finds that passengers are experiencing better performance by the airlines, even though they’re paying more to fly.
For the fourth consecutive year, the performance of the nation’s leading carriers improved, according to the 22nd annual national survey, a joint research project funded as part of faculty research activities at Wichita State University and Purdue University. It was the best overall score in the 22 years that researchers have tracked the performance of airlines. For the second consecutive year, AirTran, Hawaiian and JetBlue were the three best performing airlines. The rankings show that of the 15 carriers rated for performance in both 2010 and 2011, 10 airlines improved, four airlines declined, and one airline remained the same for 2011.
“As the system adjusts to increasing demand for air travel with a limited capacity of seats available, operations must be carefully handled for things to go as planned for travelers,” said Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. “During 2011, the industry lowered the involuntary denied boarding rate by nearly 30 percent, suggesting that most airlines are getting it together. Still, more than a third of the customer complaints for 2011 were for flight problems, such as unplanned schedule changes, delays and cancellations. When you look at the past 12 years, you find that the airline industry performs most efficiently when the system isn’t stressed by high passenger volume and high numbers of airplanes in the air. Every time there are more planes in the sky and more people flying, airline performance suffers.”
The challenge is whether airline performance quality improvements can be maintained as more people choose to fly. Or does the infrastructure and air traffic control technology limit what the airlines can do? “Further airline consolidation will continue to reduce the number of air carriers ranked in the AQR,” said Brent Bowen, professor and head of the Department of Aviation Technology at Purdue University. “Past AQR data suggest that the combining of two large air carrier operations often results in subsequent decreases in AQR rankings. We will be carefully watching to see if two highly rated carriers, such as No. 1 AirTran and No. 5 Southwest, will reverse this trend.”
The top 10airlines in order of ranking, with their rank last year in parentheses were: AirTran (1), Hawaiian (2), JetBlue (3), Frontier (9), Alaska (4), Delta (7), Southwest (5), US Airways (6), SkyWest (10) and American (11).
For the fourth consecutive year, the performance of the nation’s leading carriers improved, according to the 22nd annual national survey, a joint research project funded as part of faculty research activities at Wichita State University and Purdue University. It was the best overall score in the 22 years that researchers have tracked the performance of airlines. For the second consecutive year, AirTran, Hawaiian and JetBlue were the three best performing airlines. The rankings show that of the 15 carriers rated for performance in both 2010 and 2011, 10 airlines improved, four airlines declined, and one airline remained the same for 2011.
“As the system adjusts to increasing demand for air travel with a limited capacity of seats available, operations must be carefully handled for things to go as planned for travelers,” said Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. “During 2011, the industry lowered the involuntary denied boarding rate by nearly 30 percent, suggesting that most airlines are getting it together. Still, more than a third of the customer complaints for 2011 were for flight problems, such as unplanned schedule changes, delays and cancellations. When you look at the past 12 years, you find that the airline industry performs most efficiently when the system isn’t stressed by high passenger volume and high numbers of airplanes in the air. Every time there are more planes in the sky and more people flying, airline performance suffers.”
The challenge is whether airline performance quality improvements can be maintained as more people choose to fly. Or does the infrastructure and air traffic control technology limit what the airlines can do? “Further airline consolidation will continue to reduce the number of air carriers ranked in the AQR,” said Brent Bowen, professor and head of the Department of Aviation Technology at Purdue University. “Past AQR data suggest that the combining of two large air carrier operations often results in subsequent decreases in AQR rankings. We will be carefully watching to see if two highly rated carriers, such as No. 1 AirTran and No. 5 Southwest, will reverse this trend.”
The top 10airlines in order of ranking, with their rank last year in parentheses were: AirTran (1), Hawaiian (2), JetBlue (3), Frontier (9), Alaska (4), Delta (7), Southwest (5), US Airways (6), SkyWest (10) and American (11).
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