elitetraveler

Move over US, etc...

Number 1 Worst --
American Airlines
On-Time Arrivals: 62 percent (worst)
Baggage Mishandling: 7.34 bags per 1,000 passengers
Cancellations: 5.6 percent (second highest)
Good To Know: Besides the disappointing statistics listed above, 2.2 percent of American flights land late 80 percent of the time (the fourth worst in the category) and they come in at number one in customer complaints with 120. Better luck next month, American!


http://information.travel.aol.com/ne...140x1200077674


Number 3 Worst --
American Eagle
On-Time Arrivals: 66.4 percent
Baggage Mishandling: 12.74 bags per 1,000 passengers (worst)
Cancellations: 5.9 percent (worst)
Good To Know: Poor American Eagle -- they just can't seem to catch a break! Worst cancellations, low on-time arrivals, a high rate of baggage mishandling and they're the fourth highest airline in oversales... but lucky for them, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Their late arrival rate is only 0.8 percent, and they only nabbed 19 complaints in March. Maybe next month will see further improvements?

http://information.travel.aol.com/ne...140x1200077674

chewy3

Just a theory - but maybe they come in #1 in complaints because they actually respond to them unlike most other airlines. People are less likely to complain if they know it will fall on deaf ears.

dogcanyon

Coming from AOL this is really rich. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate my experience with AOL at about -40.

ndhapple

First off, those numbers would include the MD-80 fiasco of April as well as a couple of really really wicked thunderstorms in Dallas. Furthermore, AOL has the right to rank people the worst when they finally admit how much they suck.

ty97

These are actually based on March number. I can only imagine how bad April will be. Yikes.

I take some issue with rating 'worst airlines' on only on some items such as on-time, cancellations, bags. Where's the boarding process satisfaction (hi Southwest) or the seat pitch (or lack thereof - Hi US Airways) etc factored into this?

Spiff

Who would you rather have as a service provider:

• AOL
• Two tin cans and some string
• 2 megaphones
• Carrier pigeons

bdemaria

And the difference would be?

bdemaria

However, March was MD-80 round one.

GTITAN

Messy (i.e. Mesa) and Useless (i.e. US Airways) put into the "good" camp? CO and AA in the "worst" camp? Bahhhhhhh, is all I can say to this exercise. Safe travels Y'all.

ClipperDelta

Actually, these surveys that quote On-Time Performance, Baggae Mishandling, consumer complaints, etc., are all based on the DOT statistics (the "Air Travel Consumer Report") that come out monthly - not on some random editors' choices of best and worst airlines.

AA's on-time performance is traditionally worse than others because AA rightly or wrongly chooses not to pad their schedules with extended block times as much as some other carriers.
Case in point: I flew AA127 JFK-SAN yesterday - block time was 5 hrs 40 minutes whereas actual flight time was estimated to be 5hrs 28 mins - this means the flight really didn't have much cushion for taxi delays, etc. at JFK. Even though we pushed on schedule and took off within 30-35 minutes (reasonable for JFK), we ended up arriving the gate at SAN 28 mins late (which of course counts as a late flight by DOT standards - 14 mins is the threshold). In contrast, Delta had a JFK-SAN flight about 1 hour later than AA's but DL's flight was blocked at 6 hrs 23 mins (that's a whopping 43 minutes more than AA's) and the DL flight arrived at the SAN gate 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Examples like these are plentiful if you look at AA's schedules in general vis-a-vis some other competitors at congested airports - increasing block time of course comes with additional costs and AA has chosen not to do that even though it is a heavy player in some of these heavy-traffic airports. One of the reasons why US has been top of the on-time performance heap is because of the heavy padding US has started doing in the last few months...

zman

Some people would rank AOL worst internet access and web services providor?

ndhapple

Oh, AA does some padding too. Why do you think AUS-DFW is scheduled for anywhere between 55m-1:10m depending on the time of day? That flight is at most ~35 minutes in the air.

Thumper

Well, if no one else will, I'll stand up for American Eagle.

I think they should be #1.

davidthomson

Took the words right out of my mouth. Very very rich coming from the Worlds crappiest ISP.

CloudCoder

I can't think of even one person or organization who takes AOL's surveys and ratings seriously.