Delta wins WSJ's 2012 Scorecard comparison for operational excellence
 

Interesting article in the WSJ today: click here

The Middle Seat's annual airline scorecard of airlines' operational performance, using data from the Department of Transportation and flight-tracking firm FlightStats, shows industrywide improvement in most important measures.

Congratulations to Delta for outstanding performance in 2012!

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8078/8...a308b64e_z.jpg

While I think the overall picture is indicative of the relative performance, I think the point about industrywide improvement is the key takeaway. I also wish they would stop including the bumped passengers and complaints in these sorts of things. They impact such a tiny fraction of passengers compared to the on-time performance that it weighting them equally is just stupid.

For me there are two notable items here:

* Delta moved from last place in 2010 to first in 2012
* Delta is in first place, the two other large "legacy" carriers are at the bottom of the pile.

Spin it anyway you like and this is good for Delta.

Especially agree with respect to complaints. It's quite telling that Delta outperforms WN in every category except complaints. USAir also outperforms WN in almost every category, but not complaints. My speculation would be that the legacies cater to more business pax who are more aware of government channels for complaints.

Next time a primarily AA and/or UA flyer asks us how we deal with Skypesos, show them this graphic.

+1. As well I do get the sense that RA and the execs are pushing towards operational excellence (after all it does translate to operational efficiency and lower costs), so ^ to DL for this.