Airlines are getting better at sticking to their schedules and are losing fewer bags. Their customers seem to be complaining less often.
As The Associated Press reports, those are the findings of an annual report on U.S. airlines’ quality released today by researchers at Wichita State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Many passengers may have trouble believing those conclusions, however.
In just the last few days, Delta Air Lines suffered a multiday meltdown—canceling more than 3,000 flights after a one-day storm in Atlanta. And today, United Airlines is in the spotlight after a video showed security agents dragging a man off a plane; he had refused to give up his seat on a flight that United overbooked.
“People don’t look at the numbers,” admits Dean Headley, a marketing professor at Wichita State and co-author of the report. “They just know what happened to them, or they hear what happened to other people.”
The researchers used information compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation to rate the airlines for on-time performance, baggage handling, bumping passengers off oversold flights, and complaints filed with the government.
They judged Alaska Airlines to be the best U.S. carrier, followed closely by Delta. Frontier Airlines ranked last, followed by another discount carrier, Spirit Airlines.
