Originally Posted by
sensei
The top 3 (Delta, Alaska, Southwest) seem to be providing a better customer experience across the board. And #4 UA has invested a lot into customer focus of late.
Per the numerous clarifying comments upthread, these rankings are not based on customer satisfaction.
The fact is that all of these airlines have had their challenges and meltdowns over the past year, including particularly DL, WN, AS, and UA. I've flown all of them a fair bit during that period. IME you are just as likely to have a poor experience on UA as AA. DL has its own particular issues, which put it at the bottom of my list. WN had a bunch of problems last fall, but is back to providing the usual WN experience (which I personally don't much care for). AS is at the top, but they had a huge meltdown at SEA last month which lasted way longer than it should have and seriously inconvenienced many thousands of passengers.
(And btw, the notion that UA is investing in the customer experience is just plain laughable. UA management is all about cutting everything it possible can.)