Should air travelers just give up and stay home? Report says: yes
I’d better be careful. If I continue my monthly habit of dissecting the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report, I’m going to wind up on the side of those people who are grousing about our country’s lack of a Passengers’ Bill of Rights.
The latest DOT report (PDF), has details about on-time performance, mishandled baggage and customer complaint data for August. It also contains information on oversales (passengers denied boarding) for the first two quarters of the year. Having combed over the information, here’s the worst of the worst:
Does the government read its own work?
Yesterday, my colleague Charlie Leocha wrote an article about what he accurately described as the “can’t do government.” The gist of his story is that unless there is a crisis, there is no movement by the Feds to fix anything. Rather than finding a solution to the matter of budgeting for FAA expenses, as Charlie pointed out the day prior, Congress simply “punted funding decisions to the incoming 111th Congress with a limited continuing resolution that expires in March 2009.”
The latest DOT report once again shows absolute proof of the dismal state of New York airspace. Consider these gems:
- The three major airports that serve New York City (JFK, LGA and EWR) were also the three nationwide with the worst rates of on-time arrivals. Flights destined for Kennedy arrived on-time only 59 percent of the time, Newark only 65 percent and LaGuardia only 66 percent.
- During the month of August, there were 74 flights nationwide that were late more than 70 percent of the time. 85 percent of those involved travel to or from the three major New York airports.
I’m starting to talk myself out of that Passengers’ Bill of Rights business, unless its the government - not the airlines - we’re going to hold responsible for this mess. I’ve written about that before.
Give up and stay home
There are some on-time performance things in this report that are so bad, they deserve their own category. In my opinion, these folks shouldn’t bother; they should pack it in and go home. And customers: caveat emptor.
At JFK, the country’s worst airport for on-time performance, there are particular hours of the day that defy description, at least in a public forum. Between 6 p.m. and 7:59 p.m., 71 percent of the flights arrive late. Between 7 p.m. and 7:59 p.m., that gets worse - 75.1 percent are late. And not to miss the party, 73.6 percent of flights between 8 p.m. and 8:59 p.m. are tardy.
At the airlines, what lands must take-off. Departing flights that leave between 8 p.m. and 8:59 p.m. are only on schedule 38.6 percent of the time. Between 9 p.m. and 9:59 p.m., that figure drops to a dismal 33.7.
According to the report, there are some airlines to avoid in some airports, not just at particular times of the day, and not just to New York City:
Atlantic Southeast (Delta Connection) to JFK - only 30 percent of flights on-time
ExpressJet (Continental Connection) to LaGuardia - only 34 percent
Mesa to Newark (US Airways Express, United Express, Delta Connection) - only 38 percent
Mesa to Boston (US Airways Express, United Express, Delta Connection) - only 42 percent
Continental to Charlotte, NC - 42 percent
United to Miami - 49 percent
Comair (Delta Connection) to Newark - 50 percent
Who’s in control here?
Airlines nowadays are required to report to the Transportation Department the cause of each flight delay. That wasn’t always the case. That information can be very useful in determining which airline has its act together and which ones are managed my Larry, Moe and Curly.
First of all, I have to say that the majority (78 percent) of the nation’s commercial flights were on-time in August. And only 6 percent of the total were delayed for reasons within an airline’s control. The DOT calls these “Air Carrier Delays,” and uses this classification when “the cause of the cancellation or delay was due to circumstances within the airline’s control (e.g. maintenance or crew problems, etc.).”
So who’s not in control? Who has the worst record for delays within an airline’s control?
Mesa Airlines (US Airways Express, United Express, Delta Connection) 13 percent controllable
Atlantic Southeast (Delta Connection) 11 percent
Comair (Delta Connection) 8.1 percent
American Airlines 8.1 percent
JetBlue 7 percent
I feel like a broken record
Once again, beleaguered US Airways is at the bottom of the heap when it comes to customer complaints. People just love to hate ‘em. For the first eight months of this year, they’ve been last or darn close to it. Paradoxically, their on-time performance record has been steadily improving, yet in August, US Airways had more complaints specifically about flight problems than any other airline.
In fact, it’s more than just a 2008 thing. Historically, US Airways has been last place, or tied for last place, in the customer complaint rankings every year since 2004. I feel like that old LP of Abbey Road I used to have that kept playing the words “bang, bang Maxwell’s silver hammer” over and over and over again.
If someone can explain why they keep getting so many complaints, your fellow readers and I would love to read about it in the comments section below, or the TalkingTravelers forum of our Web site. I’ve given my opinions over the last few months; maybe some of your anecdotal evidence might help.
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Comments
4 Responses to “Should air travelers just give up and stay home? Report says: yes”
Please share your thoughts...
Most people dread traveling and with good reason. It entails so much hassle. But as long as I can do it, I’m going to. I don’t want my mind shutting down to new experiences and different cultures.
I gave up in March 07. After 8 years as a road warrior, I had had it! It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the travel once I arrived at my destination, it was the getting there that seemed like purgatory/hell! From the overall horrid airlines to the ridiculous TSA, travel is no longer tolerable. The airlines care more about their stockholders than their customers - and have succeeded in driving the customers away! Now they have to play games, nickel-and-diming us to death. The TSA is a joke. I feel no safer today than I did on 9/11. Not that I’m scared of terrorism, mind you. I’m more scared of the incompetence in the airline industry and our government at the moment.
I fly out of PHL about 30 times a year, and have Gold Status with US. Hey, it’s easy to see why US always comes in last! There are no more surly, unsmiling airline employees on earth than among the US Airways employee roles at PHL.
Never a Manager present, always really angry “customer service” staff.
I haven’t given up on travel. I’m not letting greedy incompetent airline executives and even more incompetent “Homeland Security” officials take that away from me. But I’ve redefined travel. I’ve spent my recent vacations exploring some utterly fascinating places close to home, places that I had overlooked in the past when air travel was reasonably pleasant and convenient. I look for other destinations that don’t require flying, and even go out of my way (and spend more time and money if necessary) to use transportation other than flying.
But when that’s not possible or practical, I do what I can to mitigate the ordeal. I choose airlines that at least attempt to treat passengers as valued customers rather than as “self-loading cargo” (Jet Blue and Southwest are examples) and fly out of smaller, less crowded airports when that’s possible. When confronted with TSA arrogance and stupidity, I breathe deeply, muster as much sweetness, cheer, and good will as I can, and even thank the screener for his thoroughness in protecting the Homeland. That at least denies the screener the pleasure of seeing me get upset (which I sometimes think is the only pleasure in that thankless job), and might reduce the damage to my health.
And I make my displeasure about other airlines and the TSA known by writing forum posts and letters (but never at the airport). I think that’s the only approach that has even a remote chance of obtaining results in the long term.