spin88

The annual American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) scores are out for 2014. The survey uses data from a survey of 70,000 US customers and looks at a number of industries, and the scores can be compared across industries.

The scores for airlines are as follows (the first number is for 2013, second is 2014)

JetBlue 83 79
Southwest 81 78
Delta 68 71
American 65 66
US Airways 64 66
United 62 60

For comparison, the same report listed hotel chains, The ritz-carlton has a ACSI of 86, Westin of 82, and Super 8 of 68.

It is notable that while Delta, American, and US Airways all raised there ACSI scores, United's actually fell, and the gap is substantial. As the report noted "Among the legacy airlines, Delta emerges as the best in the group, with a gain of 4% to an ACSI score of 71, inching ahead of the aggregate of smaller airlines (including Alaska Air, Frontier, and Spirit). This is a 27% improvement in customer satisfaction since 2011, when Delta plunged to an all-time low of 56 in the wake of its Northwest acquisition."

On United the report says: "Since United is so far behind other airlines in passenger satisfaction, it will not be easy to gain market share or to keep customers, especially when considering that 30% of their passengers have an ACSI score below 50. The acquisition of Continental appears to play a role here—frequent and continual problems with reservations and refunds three years after the merger are problematic."

Full report is here, registration is required to access: http://www.theacsi.org/news-and-reso...-2014-download

mdobbins

Bolding is mine. Please clarify for me - how does a passenger acquire an ACSI score? Was this a typo and does it mean that the passengers rated UA below 50?

spin88

I quoted the report, but from context its clear that the authors meant that of the 70,000 respondents, when the ACSI scores were calculated for those who answered as to United, 30% of the respondents had scores of less 50, which is really, really low.

mdobbins

Thanks - that helps me understand much better!

star_world

Looks like UA is determined to revert to the levels it languished at for the decade before the merger. This was a survey that CO historically did very well in - it's a pity that performance isn't being achieved now:

EnvoyBoy

Neither the UA or the DL numbers surprise me.

If DL was in OW or *A and had a better FF programme, I'd drop UA tomorrow. I've only flown them on some limited domestic travel but haven't had a bad DL flight or FA yet in 2014. They're impressive!

danville 1K

And incredibly ironic that this is the CO Houston gang leading the charge....

Exleftseat

The correct quote should be "“considering that 30% of (United’s) passengers (awarded) an ACSI score below 50,” ACSI said."

By the way one can access the complete report for free at Forbes.com, link
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/...action-survey/

star_world

Disappointing, rather than ironic IMO - well over half the employee base is ex-UA, and the customer-facing staff play a huge role in customer perception in surveys like this.

The disappointment is that the new UA management (which is categorically not "CO Houston" btw) hasn't been able to pull the whole employee base together to deliver an improved level of service - instead we're seeing huge divisions and incredibly poor attitudes in many cases.

danville 1K

The tone of the company is set by those at the top, the customer-facing staff are delivering the message. And those at the very top are much more CO Houston than ex-UA.

channa

Exactly. The FA has no control over the garbage food they serve, or the fact that the IFE has been ripped out, or the fact that the WiFi doesn't exist or doesn't work.

Just like the GA has no control over the fact that the computer system sucks, and it's going to take 20 minutes to rebook someone who's just been disserviced.

All the smiles and politeness in the world is not going to fix the fundamental problems at United.

star_world

Why were UA's scores so low for the decade before the merger then, in your opinion? They had a computer system that you believed was more functional for that entire period.

LASUA1K

I hope you agree, it's both sides. ex CO and ex UA employees are both blaming eachother. They need to get both sides together.

As far as the chart, you can see UA was trending up while CO was starting a drop. CO also had less customers so less complaints.

BearX220

I think the operating theory must be that this time, with fewer competitors and fewer options for consumers, it won't hurt them as much.

Take a look at UA's downward spike in star-world's chart above. That's UA's rating in the year after the 2000 "summer from hell," the worst service-and-operations debacle in UA's post-deregulation history. It looks like UA got around 57 back then. They are back in that territory now.

star_world

I totally agree that it's both sides, and that they need to be brought together.

The data is corrected for volume of customers.