Jason Karle hadn't planned on causing a scene when he boarded his weekly Boston-to-San Francisco flight on United Airlines earlier in April.

But when a flight attendant handed him a four-page customer survey about United's performance, he couldn't resist.

A day earlier, two professors, Brent Bowen of University of Nebraska and Dean Headley of Wichita State University, announced the findings of their annual Airline Quality Rating survey. The report, based on U.S. Transportation Department data, rates 14 areas of airline performance, from customer complaints to air fares and customer service.

United Airlines is rated as "the lowest performing carrier" in this year's report, which cites improvement in on-time arrivals, but poor numbers for denied boardings and passenger complaints.

Mr. Karle, a premier member of United's frequent-flier program, found the report on the Internet and printed out all 16 pages of it so he could read it on the flight to San Francisco. So when the United flight attendant came by to collect the United customer survey, Mr. Karle was ready.

"When I handed it back, I included the airline report," he says. "[The flight attendant] was completely shocked. He said 'Where did you get that?' He took it away for five minutes and brought it back. I insisted he keep it."
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