enviroian

Wow that's quite a list. There is something to be said from going to a long list of accolades to *ZERO* in 1-2 years.

Who has taken those awards from UA? The other two?

Baze

You can throw all the metics, surveys, eight ball predictions out anyone wants. I can only go by what I see. I fly out of SFO to usually Denver, sometimes Houston and rarely Chicago, then it is off to regional airports from there. I am just not seeing this "horrible" airline people keep posting about. FA's, GA's, TA's and UC reception are just not the dragons everyone seems to post about. I get lots of good mornings, thank you's etc. My bags make it with me. Yeah the seats are not comfortable but other than SW latest release about wider seats everyone is going to these slimline style seats. The food it not as atrocious as most would let you believe,it is quite edible. Sure not gourmet restaurant quality, but it has never been since the days of carvers on board. I don't see much difference in food quality in years. Is UA the best airline? Of course not. Is it the worst? Not as far as I can see. I think a lot of people just read about one persons bad experience, and yes I know it does happen, then suddenly the little thing that may not have been perfect gets blown up to be the most horrible, horrendous, thing that has ever happened to them on an airline. Some poll or survey asked of a very few people just doesn't match my experiences. Yes, upgrades have gotten harder to get, yes, the monetized RDM scheme makes me earn fewer miles. But UA is not the first to do that. And people jumping ship to another airline? What are you going to say when that airline makes changes you don't like, and I can practically guarantee you it will happen, just a matter of time. But forgetting the FF program aspect of it and just looking at MY experiences onboard and at the airports I just don't see this horrific debacle people keep posting about. What I see is group 1 lines very long with lots of GS. If it were so bad and all the upper elites were leaving you would expect the group 1 line to be very short the way people write in these threads. I am NOT being a UA apologist, I don't ever apologize for anything UA does and I don't like all the changes, but they get me where I am going and usually on time.

And a survey is only as good as the questions asked and who you ask.

DLVXB6UA

Score might not be improving, but profitability definitely is. UAL is projected to earn in excess of $4B PTI in CY2015 (per concensus), which is in line with DAL.

Very well said Baze ^^

airplanegod

That's true, I never had a Jetblue flight in recent years that was on-time.

United needs to except that they will always be a "mediocre" airline. Not saying that's a bad thing, but unless the price and schedule work, no one internationally is going to book a flight on United for their service.

spin88

Lark: And to add to my earlier post, I just read the DL 1Q 2015 conference transcript, and Ed Bastain said this:

“Well our net promoter score is we believe the best measure of brand performance across multiple consumer industries not just the airline industry and we seen a very tight correlation between improvements in our unit revenue performance and out performance directly attributable to customer satisfaction and net promoter score in the First Quarter our overall unit performance on the domestic was 115 indexed against our competitors which is substantial and we had close to 40% net promoter score in the First Quarter as well on the domestic business.

So there's no question we think it's a strong measure. It's what we use in our internal incentive metrics. Now obviously you need to drill down to for more specificity when you can't look at a broad score. You have to look at all of the driver that accumulate that score and we're constantly focused on continuing to make investments to improve areas of under performance on a customer standpoint particularly internationally.

But we do think and we've been pleased with the tracking that we've had with net promoter score, our financial performance, employee morale and satisfaction and obviously our financial performance and stock price.”

http://www.thestreet.com/story/13114...ranscript.html

Given the question that was asked, and this answer, Delta at least sees a direct link between investment in its product and better revenue and NPS results. This obviously is directly contrary to the "savvy" Hunter Keay/Smisik theory to running an airline.

tw747

I understand where this comes from. Just few a flight to ORD. Left late, arrived when scheduled, only to have to wait another 30 minutes for a gate. On top of that, flew domestic first and got the new "Refreshment" service. A basket of nasty, unhealthy junk food, and that was both directions, even thought the return flight was at 1:30 PM.

Bonehead

My experience/feelings as well. There's a silent majority out there, I think.

CO_Nonrev_elite

Nothing surprises me. On the 18th we flew TPA-EWR, and were yelled at at the 1K checkin for checking a bag that was 53lbs. No other interaction at all. We used kiosk, marked the bag as heavy, then agent came over and when she lifted it off the scale, she yelled out loud about how we shouldn't be checking anything over 50lbs. I reminder her that were were allowed up to 70lb. She muttered something about it being unacceptable as we walked away.

Nice way to start your morning...

LarkSFO

I don't dispute that airlines should pay attention to NPS scores. Neither do they, apparently.

WSJ Middle Seat column: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014...00472117800136 (or search "Dear Airline, Here's the Problem") Just FYI, it is an April 2013 article.

"At Southwest Airlines, airport managers get frequent scores on how customers rate the experience in their cities. At JetBlue Airways, captains get their own customer rating based on survey questions about announcements and updates, and one-third of annual executive bonuses are tied to customer survey results."

"Multiple carriers said they have religiously adopted "Net Promoter Scores," or NPS, a form of loyalty analysis pioneered by Bain & Co. consultant Fred Reichheld.

Following his theories, nearly every airline survey will include a question asking travelers to score from 1 to 10 their likelihood of recommending the airline to others. United, Southwest and Virgin America say they watch NPS closely. Executives at both JetBlue and Delta are convinced NPS results correlate to company profits, since stronger loyalty means stronger ticket sales."



This PDF of the 2014 SATMETRIX Net Promoter Industry Report on airlines has the ranking / scoring as follows (FYI: "Data for the 2014 US consumer benchmark was collected in January 2014 using an opt-in email survey with more than 24,000 individuals in the United States across more than 200 brands in 22 industry sectors.")

http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/268441/f...k-Airlines.pdf

Southwest 62
Jet Blue 56
Virgin America 48
Alaska 47
Delta 21
AirTran 19
CO 17
UA 10
AA 3
US -8

The trends over time on page 9 is interesting.

I have no idea why they have UA and CO as separate entities in the survey. In a January 2014 survey, how would most customers even know the difference between UA and CO?

"To calculate a company's Net Promoter Score, take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are detractors. The resulting NPS can provide insight on competitive position among companies in a given industry. By understanding attributes of the customer experience that influence the recommend score and NPS, companies can make improvements to product and service design and delivery to support profitable growth."

*Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

Add:

From the first page of the DL transcript: Anderson: "That operational excellence, along with investments we have made in products and services, drove increases in our customer satisfaction, with our domestic net promoter score increasing more than 2 points to 33%. High customer sat translates into a revenue premium, as customers have shown a willingness to pay for high-quality service."

This indicates they increased from 31 in the prior(?) quarter?

Do they develop their own NPS numbers? Or do they use an industry standard company / survey like Satmetrix?

Q4 2014 Earnings call, January 2015: http://www.thestreet.com/story/13016...ranscript.html

DLVXB6UA

The list is really interestin because it's nearly a perfect r = -1 inverse correlation between this NPS ranking and the worth of the FF miles/points.

WN, with virtually useless points, is at the top, while AA/US, with the best saver award charts, are at the bottom.

Bonehead

So WN flyers are more likely to recommend WN to others than are, say, AA's customers likely to recommend AA to others? Is that what this rating is all about?

Good grief. That's like saying that just because Fox News viewers are more likely to recommend Fox News to their friends as compared to CNN's viewers that Fox News is a better network. WN has a cult-like following; I wouldn't fly WN unless they were the ONLY option...no assigned seats, line-jumpers, and hideous seats with no chance of buying up tp FC and no E+. These types of ratings are highly suspect.

worldtrav

Flyer Friendly!

channa

UA is not horrible in an isolated world. To your points, sure the food won't kill you, and your bags usually make it.

But if you have status on other carriers and compare the overall experience and service, then all of a sudden, UA doesn't look so hot.

UA-NYC

Keep up the good work Spin.

Baze

You have your experiences and I have mine. I have stated my view on MY experiences, not yours.