Perhaps the authors should change the survey to be more of "performance" oriented rather than "quality" since 3 out of 4 criteria are based on performance [on time, mishandled bags, and IDBs]...
The biggest problem with JD Powers, SkyTrax, and some other rankings is that it is based on customer surveys... The biggest flaw with this kind of system is customers [almost all the time] would only do a survey when they are dissatisfied or extremely happy... Customers who received the service they
expected are more likely not to fill out a survey... It is amazing how bias can really skew the data and mislead people sometimes.
However, I agree that this report does not judge how we as customers perceive AS since everybody has different needs and expectations. It is just more of a statistical data report of how airlines performed in 2009 compared to 2008.
AS's average # of customer complaints went up slightly, but still almost half of the industry average, which is superb IMO. However, when basing a survey on "quality" I think this category should have more weight over mishandled baggage and IDBs, since the latter two categories is more performance based. Perhaps, the report should be an Airline Performance Report instead of Airline Quality Report. Nonetheless, I still think this report does have some merits and can be used effectively to improve some processes.
IDB is probably the easiest issue to resolve out of all four, so I am confident AS will rebound strongly in that area in 2010
If you do not like my title, let me know and I'll change it
