Originally Posted by ContinentalFan
Continental has nothing to be proud of here. The performance is very poor.
Someone in Smith Street needs to start cracking the whip. There's not really much difference between the two carriers. However, I would like to focus on Continental and ask "why the inconsistency?" and "what needs to be done to improve this performance?"
I know I have been very critical of CO, but I think in terms of the "objective" criteria detailed in the DOT lists CO and most of the airlines do a pretty good job.
First, there is the issue of on-time arrivals. A major factor in on-time arrivals is outside the control of the airline, namely the weather. The statistics will be skewed depending on how the weather turned out that month, especially at the carrier's big mid-continent hub.
In the late 90s TWA shot up to 1st place in on-time arrivals and this was due in part to the fact that the airline had gotten its act together. But it also had to do with the fact that its mid-continent hub, STL, had better average weather than the northerly hubs (ORD, MSP, DTW) which were adversly affected in winter or the Texas hubs (DFW/IAH) which tended to have worse weather in the hurricane season.
Baggage complaints are less directly affected by "acts of God" but delayed arrival of flight at hubs mean overly tight connection times and thus greater likelihood of bags not making the connection.
Finally, there are customers complaints, the least "objective" of the three DOT criteria. But there is again a correlation between weather and a commensurate increase in customer complaints.
I like to look at the more "subjective" airline rankings, such as JD Power, Conde Nast Traveler, or Zagat.
In the 2005 JD Power rankings, Continental ranked 6th (668 pts) while United ranked 9th (637 pts). That's really not a huge difference in pts, btw. JetBlue was 1st (783 pts).
In the Conde Nast Traveler Awards, Jet Blue took the honors as the Top Domestic Route Airline (Midwest was 2nd & Song (rip) was 3rd)
And regarding Zagat, CO topped the Premium overall rankings with 21 pts while United was 4th with 17 pts.
The best overall score (in a non-premium airline, sounds like the Oscar's, doesn't it?) belonged to Midwest (21 pts) while B6 was 2nd (19 pts) while CO was 9th overall.
I think picking an airline, though, is a lot like picking the right college for your kids. The ranking is pretty irrelevant. If the airline serves your market well (the way, say, CO does well by MichaelW9 in HNL) and it provides the things you care about (big planes vs. pillows or leather seats vs elite pre-boarding, etc.) you pick your airline based on your criteria.