<B>Delta Earns Top Ratings</B>
By David Jonas
Delta Air Lines unseated perennial winner Southwest Airlines at the top of the 2000 National Airline Quality Rating, a study published annually by university researchers. America West Airlines and United Airlines experienced the largest declines and finished at the bottom of the rankings. Industrywide, the average airline quality rating slid by nearly 11 percent from 1999, and by 27 percent since 1998.
Overall rankings for the 10 major U.S. airlines were determined by blending scores from 15 weighted categories measured by the U.S. Department of Transportation, including: on-time performance, denied bookings, mishandled baggage and 12 customer complaint categories. Weights were determined by surveying 65 industry experts. On-time performance was weighted most heavily while the combination of customer complaints held the least weight.
All four criteria measured by researchers declined overall and researchers said the "average score shows an industry that is declining in quality relative to customer performance criteria." Both airlines and researchers, however, noted that the root of the problems lie in an increasingly congested aviation infrastructure.
Individually, only three carriers improved their overall quality rating. Delta jumped from third to first by weathering the wave of customer service deterioration slightly better than others. Though three categorical scores were down from a year ago, declines were not as pronounced compared with other airlines. A large improvement came in denied bookings: Delta's figure of 0.33 per 10,000 passengers was just a quarter of the 1999 figure.
Alaska Airlines and US Airways were the only others scoring higher than last year. Alaska's improvement--and resulting second-place finish--was driven entirely by better performance in the mishandled baggage category, down to 3.48 mishandlings per 1,000 passengers from 5.75 a year ago. Its scores, however, declined in the other three categories. At US Airways, improvements came in all categories except denied bookings. It finished fourth overall.
Southwest dropped to third in the rankings, as the highly successful low-fare carrier showed some chinks in its armor. On-time performance slid by nearly 5 percent, while both mishandled baggage and denied bookings increased. Though the number of customer complaints edged upward, Southwest's ratio of 0.47 complaints per 1,000 passengers again was easily the lowest, at roughly one-sixth of the industry average.
Also on the decline was Continental Airlines, which slid from second all the way to seventh. While on-time performance improved, other areas deteriorated, including a denied boarding rate five times higher than a year earlier.
United Airlines posted the worst on-time performance and lower scores in both denied bookings and customer complaints, which doubled from a year earlier. Though the carrier improved its mishandled baggage performance and moved out of last place, it still ranked ninth overall in the industry.
Compelled to address the survey even before it was released, United president Rono Dutta acknowledged a "horrible" year with a "predictable" rating precipitated by labor strife. "We are in a difficult circumstance operationally and do not have many silver bullets to play," he said. "But the study doesn't accurately show our performance improvements." Dutta cited better figures in all categories, as measured in more recent DOT reports, and an overall investment of $330 million for customer service initiatives. He added, however, that investment only will alleviate ongoing problems and that he "cannot promise drastic improvement this year or next."
As United moved out of the basement, America West moved in. The carrier posted the largest decline, primarily a result of a year-over-year doubling of customer complaints stemming from operational difficulties at its hub airports. The carrier did, however, manage to improve the denied boarding rate.
Northwest Airlines in fifth place, American Airlines in sixth and Trans World Airlines in eighth all finished with lower overall scores.
Overall, "it seems the airline industry is its own worst enemy," according to researchers who advocated government intervention. The study found that "qualitative assessment of consumer experiences indicates an increasing frequency of consumer/employee confrontations that clearly stem from management policies and practices that encourage misinformation regarding flight status information and flight delays."
Cited policies included blocked access to window and aisle seats based on ticket price and standing in a frequent flyer club, increased change fees, more stringent carry-on baggage limitations and restrictive rules disallowing passengers to take an earlier connection when a seat is available.
The study was produced by Brent Bowen, director of the Aviation Institute at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Dean Headley, associate professor at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. The annual study first was published in 1991.