MilesBuzz! - USDOT Air Travel Consumer Report

A couple of months ago I ordered the Air Travel Consumer Report from the US Dept. of Transportation. In the report, it lists all flight delays, mishandled baggage, customer complaints, oversales, and other related statistical data for the current month.

The report was for the month of October (98).
For example:

- Flights arriving late 80% of the time:

US 255 ATL-PHL
US 963 IAD-LAX

- Mishandled Baggage Report Ranking:
(1 Best 10 Worst)
#1 America West
#2 US Airways
#3 TWA
#4 Delta
#5 Continental
#6 Southwest
#7 American
#8 Southwest
#9 Alaska
#10 United

- Passengers Denied Boarding (Oversales)

#1 Continental
#2 US Airways
#3 Northwest
#4 American
#5 United
#6 America West
#7 Delta
#8 Alaska
#9 Southwest
#10 TWA

- Consumer Complaints Rankings

#1 Southwest
#2 US Airways
#3 Alaska
#4 Delta
#5 United
#6 TWA
#7 Northwest
#8 American
#9 Continental
#10 America West

You can get a copy by writing to:

Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings
U.S. Department of Transportation
400 7th Street S.W. C-75/Room 4107
Washington, D.C. 20590

Also on the web at:

http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer

Tim

To clarify your key here, in each of the rankings, #1 means either fewest baggage problems, fewest passengers left behind, or fewest complaints. The term "Best" is somewhat confusing...

I'm surprised about CO being far down on the complaints list -- I thought they were doing quite well?

The most interesting (and not surprising) item for me was the on-time (or should I say late) arrivals at SFO. I have experienced significant weather delays because of conditions at SFO but I didn't expect that they would be so much worse than ORD. Their stats at SFO are SIGNIFICANTLY worse than any other airport.

I was surprised too BlondeBomber but maybe California has been having a lot of bad weather lately.

In winter I always brace myself for being delayed at ORD because of snow, sleet, cancelled flights, etc. I think the rankings
may change with the snowstorms in the Midwest.

The biggest surprise for me was that South-
worst got the fewer number of complaints? I guess people are so happy with the reasonable fares they overlook the cattle herding atmosphere of the airline (of course I should
NOT be so judgemental until I fly them, after a good shot or two of Jack Daniels or relevent beverage!) CATMAN

the statistic is for november. And around/after Thanksgiving SFO had fog-problems (I arrived from SEA instead of 10:30PM at 4:00AM).

also here, and I repeat myself: I ONLY TRUST THE STATISTICS I FALSIFY MYSELF.

An airline with the weather-critical airports SFO, ORD and DEN as main-hubs is very likely to have more delays (and as a follow up of delays also luggage-problems and consumer complaints and may be also denied boardings) then other ones.

And weather wouldn't be the airline's fault (but you could consider choosing such critical airports as main-hubs being the airline's fault).

Southwest's good rankings are pretty much a given and a constant. It really goes to show how much managing expectations does for customer satisfaction! No elite programs, tie ins with other airlines, last seat availability on frequent flier itineraries--just think of all the problems on this board that these business decisions eliminate!