Airline “Darts and Laurels” from latest DOT report
The U.S. Department of Transportation released its monthly Air Travel Consumer Report (PDF) yesterday, and it’s time once again for my list of awards — some good and some not-so-good — for the nation’s airlines.
The “Phoenix Rising” Award. Southwest Airlines reclaimed its rightful place at the top of the large airline on-time-performance pile. That’s good news for them, and sort of ho-hum expected news for the rest of us. We’re used to it.
But even bigger news is what’s happening down the road in metro Phoenix, where Tempe-based US Airways has quietly risen to #3 in the cumulative on-time rankings. That’s right, third place. Over the course of the last 12 months, on average, only 1.3 percentage points separate US Airways’ and Southwest’s rates of on-time arrivals!
Historically, US Airways hasn’t exactly been synonymous with the words “on time,” but it seems they’re trying to shake that reputation. Philadelphia, one of US Airways’ largest hubs, has been a thorn in the side of travelers since the days of Orville and Wilbur. Maybe somebody has finally gotten a handle on it after all?
Note: Hawaiian is technically at the top of the list, but for discussion’s sake, I’m sticking to the bigger airlines that most of us - except the government - use as benchmarks. Hawaiian had so few passenger enplanements — less than even the smaller commuter airlines on the list that many of us have never heard of.
Speaking of on-time performance, for these next two awards, one really has to wonder, which came first, the chicken or the egg…
The “Singing the JetBlues” Award. They may be funky. They may even be hip. I may like their current “Mr. Blue Sky” ad campaign. But they’re late!
Consider this: In January, JetBlue’s 12-month cumulative on-time arrivals rate was 76.7 percent, placing them 7th of the 18 major airlines on the Transportation Department’s report. Fast forward to the current report, which provides data for July, 2008. JetBlue’s cumulative ranking plummeted to last place, with only 64.6 percent arriving on-time.
The news gets worse. 10.7 percent of JetBlue’s flights were late more than 70 percent of the time in July. The carrier operated one-fifth of the flights on the “arrived late more than 80% of the time or more” list.
I’m sure its customers aren’t singing a happy tune about all this.
The “Airport to Avoid” Award. JFK. Need I say more? Not really, but I will.
JFK took the stale cake in July. Only 57.4 percent of flights into Kennedy were on-time for the month. If you were unlucky enough to fly out of JFK between 9 and 10pm, you had a mere 27.5 percent chance of leaving on schedule! That’s nothing short of pathetic.
If we go back to that list of flights that were consistently late for the month, the four that were tardy 100% of the time involved travel to or from JFK. All were operated by Delta Connection carrier Comair. Comair, incidentally, had the worst on-time rate for the month of July, as opposed to the cumulative ranking I referenced above for JetBlue.
Back to that chicken and egg question, which is it? Is JFK that bad, causing JetBlue to be so late? Or are JetBlue’s operational problems marring that airport’s reputation and helping add to the existing bottleneck since their primary hub is at Kennedy? Hmm.
The “Don’t Expect Luggage To Arrive” Award. This isn’t just a Delta problem, but the snide acronym DELTA (get it?) fit the title of this award too nicely to pass up.
On the chart that shows the rate of baggage loss by airline, the six with the worst rates are commuter airlines. In order from least-worst to most-worst, they are: Pinnacle (Northwest Airlink, Delta Connection), Skywest (Delta Connection/United Express), Mesa (US Airways Express/United Express/Delta Connection), American Eagle (American Airlines), Atlantic Southeast (Delta Connection) and Comair (Delta Connection).
Those six airlines account for 13 percent of the customers flown by all major airlines in the month of July; they represent 21 percent (57,782) of all missing bag reports.
On second thought, maybe the whole Don’t Expect Luggage To Arrive (DELTA) thing is right. Five of the six airlines listed above operate, exclusively or in part, as Delta Connection.
The “Think I’ll Go Eat Worms” Award. Do you remember that kids’ song? I do. “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I’ll go eat worms…” Last month, I talked about the clear-cut reason why US Airways’ complaint ranking was so poor – they had more customer service complaints than anybody else. But this month, they were dead last, and for the life of me, I can’t see why. There’s no standout category or issue that is head-and-shoulders worse than another carrier. It’s just consistent, across the board, general customer dissatisfaction.
In the face of such stellar on-time mojo, it doesn’t make sense why USAir seems so universally disliked. But if you look back at previous months (and years) reports, this isn’t a new phenomenon.
The next DOT report will be out in early October. I’ll see what gems I can dig up for you then.
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The “Phoenix Rising” Award. Southwest Airlines reclaimed its rightful place at the top of the large airline on-time-performance pile.
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Maybe that’s the reason they DO NOT operate out of……….JFK, LGA, DCA, EWR.
They would likely lose that “rightful place” on the pile.
I am not surprised at US Airways’s dead-last ranking. I have made a conscientious effort to avoid flying them since April, because they have made this Gold Preferred member crazy at the steady drumbeat of stupid moves aimed at alienating Frequent Flyers. Ist the elimination of the 500s mile per flight minimum, even though the shortest flights are the most expensive. Then the elimination of any bonuses (50% in the case of Gold, 25% in the case of Silver). Then the overall rudeness of almost all staff in Boston and Philadelphia. Then the charges for coffee and water. Then the extra charges for “free” award tickets. It never ends; I am beginning to drive to Newark to fly Continental!