WASHINGTON, April 2, 2007
Airlines Get A Bad Report Card
Study: Number Of Bags Lost And Passengers Bumped Increased In 2006, With Fewer On-Time Flights
-
Play CBS Video
Video
Flying The Unfriendly Skies
A new study of the nation's 18 largest airlines shows that travelers are facing more delays and lost bags. As travel quality deteriorates, customer complaints have also dwindled. Nancy Cordes reports.
-
Video
Airlines' Performance Slammed
A new study says an increase in the number of flight delays, lost bags, and bumped passengers have caused airline quality to decrease for the third straight year. Nancy Cordes has more details.
-
Photo
US Airways passengers at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport wait it out. US Airways and United Airlines had the highest number of complaints, according to a new survey. (AP)
-
News Tools
U.S. Airport Tracker
Up-to-the-minute reports on delays and closures.
-
Interactive
Industry Turbulence
See how the country's top airlines are faring
-
Interactive
Eye On Air Safety
See how turbulence affects an airplane, test your flight survival knowledge and see how black boxes help crash investigators piece together what happened.
The report does not include recent weather-related flight delays such as the ones that left JetBlue and United Airlines planes idling for hours on taxiways.
"They just don't get it yet," said Dean Headley, an associate professor at Wichita State University who co-authored the study with Brent D. Bowen of the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
One upside, researchers said, was that the overall number of airline complaints has stabilized since hitting a five-year low in 2005.
JetBlue, which rated highest on the list for the past three years, was bumped out of the top slot by Hawaiian Airlines, which made its debut on the list this year. The top three on the 18-airline list were Hawaiian, JetBlue and AirTran, while the bottom three were, from worst to best, Atlantic Southeast, American Eagle and Comair.
Industry spokesman David Castelveter blamed the majority of delays on bad weather. Making matters worse, he said, more planes will be in the air in coming years, and the air traffic control system cannot handle the growth.
"We're going to see more delays and those delays translate to cancellations, mishandled bags and unhappy passengers," said Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, a trade group for the major U.S. carriers. "It's not a pretty picture."
Congress needs to provide more money to update the system so it can improve its handling of the increased traffic and weather problems, Castelveter said.
Analysts fault the airlines for trying to cut costs by squeezing more passengers onto fewer planes, CBS News transportation and consumer safety correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.
"I can't remember when I've flown in a plane that had more than two or three empty seats," airline industry analyst Peter Goelz told CBS News. "That's good for the airlines, but when you bump into a problem, there's no margin of error."
The Airline Quality Rating report, compiled annually since 1991, looked at 18 airlines and was based on Transportation Department statistics. The research is sponsored by the Aviation Institute at University of Nebraska at Omaha and Wichita State University.
Among the findings:
© MMVII, CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
I don't understand why people complain about it, expect someone else to fix it,....and then keep paying for the same crappy service. If you don't like it.......DON'T FLY! Companies are in business to make money. Filling out a complaint form doesn't cost them anything. NOT FLYING DOES.
So for the people complaining: When you have the guts to make a hard choice and put your money where your mouth is......maybe things will change.
And we have the right to not give them our hard earned money, stupid!
You act like we owe them something and they owe us nothing. Our taxes went to save their worthless greedy rear ends. Since they don't owe us service, according to you, then how about they pay it back?
Eventually we'll get smart and invest in better and more productive forms of travel. As for now, the alternatives are just as bad.
By the way...I agree with you....our taxes should NOT have gone to them to bail out their bad business practice. That IS a fault of our government...all the way back to the 80s in terms of airlines.
Now what's up with the "stupid" comment?? You do realize that since you completely missed the part where I AGREED WITH YOU about our choice to keep flying.........you've opened yourself up for fairly easy ridicule....
May as well let them run our airlines... they control everything else in the US...
With deregulation came competition and lower prices. Now you can afford to fly along with everybody else hence the problem. Crowded flights and delays are common place because of an overloaded system.
I agree tax dollars should not be used to bail out business. What is required is that some of these struggling airlines be allowed to fail to make more room for the more efficient ones. That's business, that's the free market doing what it does best. Goverment's role is to make sure everybody plays by the same rules not to set prices. There is no perfect system but time and time again the free market has outscored the other systems.
I'm curious.....are the airline workers unionized in Europe?
good point... I am curious about the responses here.
Humans are like water - they take the path of least resistance.
I'd like to see baggage handling outsourced to FedEx, UPS or other, and let them compete for the contracts against each other. It would result in a system that was better, faster, cheaper, and would be accountable too.
As fliers, we should go right to the lost baggage line, forgoing the carousel, and report our bags lost and go home. It would be faster than waiting for them to show up on the carousel, and would send a message to the airlines that we will not accept this treatment any more.
The flight and the airlines' responsibility for service does not end at the gate, but when we get our bags and leave the airport.
Yeah, we have the right to choose, but just not the right to complain? We don't owe them anything, and if we want to complain - that's a part of the process as well!!
I am sick of every time the subject comes up about airlines poor customer treatment, here comes someone to tell the rest of us that we have nothing to complain about and to shut up.
It goes like this:
You're stuck on an airline 11 hours? Tough! You should just be happy they let you on! Airlines lost your luggage? Tough! Who told you to bring a change of clothing in the first place? The plane is packed to capacity, seats to small, leg room about nil and you're arriving late? Tough! It's better now than before deregulation and why don't you just drive next time? Anything but complain!
Did anyone ever find out?
I can't understand why the airlines are not self-sufficient yet. Every other non-bankrupt business entity is. I agree that some of them need to go in the name of progress. U.S. Airways should be one. I flew Southwest recently and had EXCELLENT service in Pittsburgh (home), Chicago (midway) and Phoenix (destination).
Airline CEO's should have pay tied to performance. If they suck - NO MONEY!! Hit them where it hurts and maybe they will wake up.
Posted by b727100bear at 11:26 PM : Apr 02, 2007
On the contrary, airlines and airplane owners should pay the expenses for operating airports, not taxpayers.
If taxpayers are going to subsidize transportation, we need to subsidize local commuter railroads.
It isn't the taxpayers' responsibility to subsidize airlines or airports.
If passengers and airplane owners do not want to be delayed or inconvenienced, they need to pay their own bills.
BTW, according to the story, the number one complaint is about lost luggage. How will improving ATC resolve that complaint?
For those of you old enough to remember Pan Am service during the 1960's, those were the days. Flying from New York to Instanbul, with a brief stopover in Vienna and London - this quality of service should be the goal of every airline.
Now, flying is like taking a bus trip. It's affordable, so everyone flys. Next they will install pay toilets.
2/2006--enoguh seats that I and my daughter could stretch completely out (but I chose an entire row with windows (3 seats). going to and from Hawaii--3/2006 same thing except traveling with 5 people--all had plenty of lateral room, (space for long legs and knee space--non existent the crowded flights were the commuter flights into hubs like LAX and O Hare, those were fully packed. Service sucks with several flights not even having working toilets (when they don't have toilets--no beverages are served and we are no longer allowed to bring drinks on board or in waiting area. Try THAT when you have a sore throat or hacking cough.
********************************
British airways--I used to like--but now, one of worst airlines. Personnel suck. They forced my family to split apart (my girls were 9 and 2--the 9 year old ended up sitting alone. because a 20 something person with bad hygiene claimed to need to sit with their tour group (we had reserved seats) then they spent the flight continually being chastised for getting up when they shouldn't, throwing things like pens and socks, etc. For daring to complain, I got a suspisciously open food container while everyone got sealed. There was some wet, yellowish stuff atop the rice. They hovered and asked how I liked the meal. I smiled and NEVER ate a single bite--in those days (and Now) I carry an emergency ration of goodies --as for my drink, I ask for the unopen can. this happened going from London to Ireland in 1999--been boycotting them since.
I'm curious.....are the airline workers unionized in Europe?
Posted by blazercoach1 at 11:32 AM : Apr 02, 2007
***************************
Many are, and even those that are not, usually have protected jobs. They cannot be fired at will, their minimum wage is almost twice ours, and they must go to court to dismiss someone. They get paid vacations from the first day of work on (2 weeks that can then progress to as much as 5 weeks a year) they all have health benefits and even part timers have rights --full timers in America do not have including the implied right to work--which means if they stay at a job for a certain period of time (In Holland I believe it is 60 or 90 days) they must be offered permanent part time work, with paid holidays, benefits, etc and again--cannot be fired without a very lengthy process. American companies doing business in Europe are subject to these same rules and must agree before establishing businesses there.
Stop it--the rhetoric about competition, and how the private sector can do it better is bs--initially, yes things get a little better, but as the price wars and competition drag on, service gets worse and worse. 2 huge cases in point: Look at the mess of cable and telephone service. Bogus charges, rate hikes and who among us haven't gotten those letters or notices saying the cable, telephone or even mortgage companies are sued and have to pay huge settlements for fraud? The same is true for gas service and even banking (banc of america just paid out millions for fraud) face it, when greed drives the game--companies will do whatever they can get away with including stealing from customers, shoddy work, etc. And this is not just unionized people. Fed EX has been responsible for delivery of overnight mail and express from the USPS for several years now. Most overnight mail takes 2 days to get there and to date this year, I have had 3 lost items and at least 2 tracked items, where the item was not even wanded. Quality is not the mainstay of the private sector either.
LOL. so tell us....If you need to get to Istanbul or any point off the North American continent, how do you get there in a car?
and no, you can have crappy service internationally also. (I flew to Paris in 1994 on TWA) the service was so awful..truly one for the books--it included a male fA that yelled at everyone, addressed dried spaghetti in a tray by removing it with his bare hands and swinging it over his head before tossing it into the crowded seats. (and he still expected the passenger to eat where his hands had been) the crew refused to identify the person (they all removed their tags) they also picked up drinks before they were done--told everyone they had enough and turned off the reading lights of those reading at night--shouting "No one can sleep with the lights on--be considerate!" When we got to Paris, an entire line tried to make complaints but the lines were so long, most just said forget it. I never flew them again. In 1996 when that TWA flight to Paris went down in DC, I wondered if the crew from hell was in attendance.
-
by klingon69
April 3, 2007 1:34 PM EDT
- Barbara4;
-
Reply to this comment
-
See all 29 CommentsLike anyone can negotiate the narrow spaces to reach the bathroom. Let alone be able to get out of your sesat and row.