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Despite the mounting frustrations with flight delays,
cancellations, overbooking, mishandled baggage, and other
operational missteps, the U.S. Department of Transportation
is doing its level best to provide information to help
frequent flyers make the best decisions when choosing
carriers, flights...even which airport to use if there's a
choice. The DOT issues a monthly "Air Travel Consumer
Report," which you can download to analyze the data.
Although you may not want to review each report, checking
it out from time to time will help you tailor your schedule
or select flights that are most likely to get you where you
need to be when you need to be there.

The report tracks the on-time arrival and departure records
of the major domestic airlines and all U.S. airports,
drilling down to specific time of day. There's even a list
of regularly scheduled flights that arrive late 80% of the
time. (Interestingly, only one of the chronically late
flights in March was a morning arrival.) If you often fly
from Boston to New York's JFK, for example, you'll want to
avoid American Eagle's 7 p.m. flight 5036. It was late
93.3% of the time in March 2001, and the delay averaged 78
minutes. In fact, American Eagle reported the most system
cancellations (7.0%) of all airlines reporting and the
second-highest percentage of delayed flights (4.3%) during
the period. Alaska Airlines has the dubious distinction of
reporting the most flights delayed (9%).

On the other hand, Alaska is the least likely airline to
mishandle your baggage. But, if you're traveling American
Eagle or Southwest, carry on. That doesn't necessarily mean
they actually lose your bags, because Southwest also boasts
the fewest complaints per passengers emplaned. American
Eagle also fared well in terms of customer complaints.

As for airports, you can check the overall track record of
on-time departures to determine the best time for takeoff.
Atlanta's Hartsfield, for instance, reported that 85-90% of
its flights that departed before 9 a.m. left on time in
March; but between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., more than one-third
of all its departures that month were delayed. And at
Seattle-Tacoma International, nearly two-thirds of all
flights scheduled to depart between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. were
delayed; but if you could wait until 10 p.m., your chances
of leaving on time doubled.

You can access the monthly "Air Travel Consumer Report" via
the travel section of the AAA web site
http://newsletter.oag.com/cgi-bin2/f...VFU0TQ0BBC20AQ

as well as on the DOT's own site
http://newsletter.oag.com/cgi-bin2/f...VFU0TQ0BBC30AR
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Note: Reading a colleague's copy?
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http://newsletter.oag.com/cgi-bin2/f...MVFU0TQ0YDg0Ab


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