CPRich

2nd to WN in on-time arrivals among majors, and near the top for quite a while now, 2nd overall in baggage handling, and yet still 2nd worst in customer complaints.

I realize general "reputation" takes a while to change (if ever), but complaints are tied directly to specific experiences. What are all the complaints about if it's not baggage handling and on-time arrivals?

Theories?

PWMFlyer19

I have 1 answer - PHL. The other hubs can be fantastic and the employees can do a great job, but PHL needs a wholesale change. Ever flown out of the US Express in F Terminal ? A nightmare...

I can see how that express operation, plus the regular PHL mainline operation can generate the majority of the complaints. The airport employees just don't have the soft skills to smooth over the inevitable problems that crop up - or they make them worse - and the customer gets a bad taste in their mouth and files a complaint.

Just one man's opinion. Cheers.

pueywei

Old bag tag system that doesn't allow for >4 segments. I had to lug it around and I had thought of filing a complaint but didn't bother after that transpac.

croberts134

DOT complaints tend to lag actual performance. People usually try with the airline first and escalate to the DOT when they are frustrated with the (lack of) response. So July's DOT complaints likely apply to travel from January-June-ish. I would imagine that if the operation remains the same as it performed in July that the complaints numbers will start to go down.

It's also worth noting that US IDBs more often than any other carrier (express carriers excluded) which likely drives DOT complaints as well.

rvolkcpa

We rarely fly from PHL because it is a 2-hour minimum drive from our home, compared with an hour to ABE or EWR. So far this year we have used PHL twice and had good experiences. One trip was to IND on Republic and our latest one was mainline to TPA. All arrivals and departures were on time. Our luggage on the flight from IND arrived quickly. Luggage on the flight from TPA did seem to take about a half hour to arrive. Even though our bags had STAR Priority tags on them, one of our bags was the last off the belt. Still, overall I would rate our Philly trips as better than 2 trips we took from EWR.

ABE remains our favorite airport, when schedules and fares are inline.

me4yankees

IRROPS, in-flight product/service didn't meet expectations, poor customer service experiences, broken IFE on international flights, no IFE on domestic flights, fees, the website, problems making reservations...just to name a few possibilities. Stuff still happens to some customers sometimes.

kudzu

Small improvement in the most-recent Sep DOT report (for July numbers), with US above 2 other legacies in the customer complaints rankings. If I were a FF on that other legacy airline which has ranked consistently last in the last five DOT reports, I'd begin to get worried

As to what's still wrong, the Sep report points to 3 areas with the most complaints: (1) Res/tktg/Boarding (2) Flight Problems (3) Customer Service.

(1) QIK/SHARES and its inherent limitations; costly change fees; and a boarding system which has not been standardized years after the merger. As croberts134 notes above, high (or highest) US IDBs also make for frustrated, angry pax .....

(2) Flight problems are bound to happen daily, but US needs to look into suitable responses as a standard - a proactive, "We're sorry, here's some Miles or vouchers as compensation" before complaint is filed would be a start;

(3) Generally, Customer Service continues to improve. Much of this has to do with training, staffing and better response times, and US is to be commended for that.

PHL

Get ready for more misery...There are plans to expand F....

jimcfsus

As if F'ed wasn't bad enough.

cwe84

The plan for F is to add jet bridges to all of the gates and add a second level to the one side to accomodate another set of offices and the rumor is a new club. Most of Piedmont is supposed to be shifted to CLT and all express flights should depart from F. So thats what I have been told is going to happen in the next few years...

ellinj

A good start would be fixing many of the broken seats.

VanTheMan63

Well said...

And to top it off, you write them and/or tell them about it...and they make it your fault.

It's interesting...I meet people in my traveling life ALL the time...who don't know me, never heard of FT, don't know how much I travel...and they tell me, "Dear God, that is one horrible airline."

I recently had some customers visit me in Napa...from PVD...."we won't fly US Airways," COMPLETELY unprovoked.

So, every month, new and more customers get bent over...the good thing is, at some point, they'll figure it out.

us2

The actual data for July is here: http://airconsumer.dot.gov/reports/2...200909ATCR.PDF

US actually comes out ahead of AA and DL. Page 36 breaks down the reasons behind the complaints by carrier. For US, the top 3 are reservations/ticketing/boarding, flight problems and customer service issues. One thing to bear in mind is the small sample size in a given month: US had 55 complaints -- DL had the most with 130.