3Cforme

The Feb. 2019 issue of the DOT Air Travel Consumer Report has full-year 2018 data for on-time performance and denied boarding.

https://www.transportation.gov/sites...ry2019atcr.pdf

Delta did pretty well in on-time although Delta Connection lags mainline. DC still beat mainline UA/AA/WN however. (JetBlue and Frontier are wrecks.) The combined DL/DL Connection placed #2 in on-time for the year behind Hawaiian.


This DOT report cites cancellations and causes for the month but not YTD, regrettably.

Involuntary Denied Boarding is statistically a non-issue on Delta flights - but boy, they do a lot of VDB.



Baggage handling is reported only by operating carrier. Delta mainline is better than the industry average. The three regional express carriers large enough to be reporting for this table are way behind mainline performance. Weight and balance issues? Less automation at small airports?

FlyBitcoin

Holy crap, AAL has nearly half of the involuntary denied boarding events in the US in 2018.
At the same time that Spirit, JetBlue, WN, and UA all cut their IDB's down dramatically, AA just kept up their shenanigans.
I'll keep that in mind if I have to fly AA in a pinch with no status.

DLmedalliongold

Credit where credit is due - Delta runs a great operation and part of the reason why I'll fly them when possible even while living in Dallas.

exwannabe

It is still only 1 out of 400, your odds of being being MX'd or WX'd are much higher.

Note that AA has less total DBs. I guess they just do not offer as much as DL (and UA) do. A choice by the airlines to t handle this. Offering more than the VDB penalty costs cash, but does have a negative CS impact.

Odd also that WN has a high percentage of IDBs despite the lowest overall DB percentage. I would think their pax would be some of the first to take cash.

DavidDTW

WN doesn't offer anywhere near as much as the legacy carriers in bump situations. Usually their offer is the cost of your ticket plus $300. I have never seen or heard of them offering more than that.

pgh234

Most people flying WN are less savvy flyers, leading them to believe there is some sort of "catch" with the VDB offer. They don't trust the airline.

kop84

Was there a cloud over OGG one day? Or a big backup on the tarmac in ITO? To me it's a stretch counting HA in on-time stats. DL, AA, UA, B6 especially operate huge schedules in some of the most congested airspace in the world from BOS to WAS.

HA is a good airline, it's just not really a fair comparison.

And I'd expect that F9 and G4, don't particularly care about their OTP as they probably schedule the planes as close as possible to squeeze another flight per day out of them. And of course any slight delay in the morning is only going to have an extreme cascade effect when you don't schedule any wiggle room. But they just don't care as I doubt many people flying those airlines take the time to look up DOT stats!

3Cforme

You can dump on the ULCCs if you want but Spirit has really broken from the pack (better than mainline UA/AA/WN) in on-time and in baggage handling.

Often1

It is generally acknowledged that there is no carrier with a statistically significant IDB rate. AA's rate of 2,914 of over 46.9 Million enplaned passengers means that being IDB is not a risk to worry about particularly.

If you look at total denied boardings, it is more likely that AA has backed off the silly post-Dao offers which were an overreaction in the first place.

kop84

Not necessarily dumping on them. Just a different set of priorities. DL especially touts it's OTP and other DOT stats, as an appeal to business travelers who's arrival is very time critical. F9 and G4 have chose they'd rather get the extra turn done even if it's late and appeals to price conscience leisure travel as you might get there a bit late but you'll get there for $19.