The Best & Worst Airlines in the United States

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) states that approximately 499 million people boarded one of the ten major U.S. carriers to fly domestically within the United States in 1999 (Bowen & Headley, 2000). This number does not include the almost 55 million people that boarded a flight in the US on route to an international destination. Furthermore, regional and commuter carriers accounted for an additional approximately 57 million passengers flying domestic routes. This brings to approximately 611 million the total number of people boarding a plane in the US in 1999. And looking to the future, the FAA forecasts that domestic passenger travel will increase, on average, between 3 percent and 4 percent each year for the next 12 years, which means that domestic travel could reach 1 billion passengers by the year 2011 (Bowen & Headley, 2000).

Thus, while airline service is often successful at getting huge numbers of people where they want to go, the sheer capacity and complexity of the enterprise is vulnerable to numerous errors and disruptions that can cause problems for a relatively large number of people. So, although airlines like to point to their overall success in transporting passengers to emphasize that problems are relatively infrequent--for example, in 1998 Northwest had 2.21 complaints per 100,000 passengers--with half-a-billion passenger boardings, problems add up (Spencer, 1999, p. 43). Moreove

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An improvement in involuntary denied boarding rates was not enough to offset declines in other performance areas and American registered the second largest decline, after US Airways in AQR score of the ten major airlines. America West America West improved their on-time performance for 1999 but still posted the worst on-time performance rate (69.5 percent). Denied boardings and mishandled baggage performance also declined. Trans World Airlines Trans World Airlines improved performance in on-time arrivals and involuntary denied boardings. On-time performance (80.9 percent) was the best in the industry for the year. Mishandled baggage rates stayed the same and customer complaint rates increased, all of which helped TWA show the smallest decline in AQR score of all the seven airlines posting declines. United Airlines Although United improved its on-time arrival percentage and its mishandled baggage rate, the airline posted declining performance in denied customer complaints, which combined to keep United as the lowest performing carrier in the Airline Quality Ratings. D. Common Sense Definitions It is highly likely that the weighted averages on which the AQR are based would reflect the average consumer's experience wi

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