Hawaiian tops US airline quality survey
HONOLULU – Hawaiian Airlines has earned the USA’s number one ranking for overall quality for the second straight year in the 2009 Airline Quality Rating (AQR) study.
Hawaiian was also the top-ranked airline in the annual AQR study for 2006 and 2008.
Eighteen leading US carriers were evaluated based on a mathematical formula using a weighted average of multiple elements in four major areas important to consumers when judging the quality of airline services: on-time performance, mishandled baggage, involuntary denied boardings, and customer complaints.
The 2009 AQR study reported that Hawaiian ranked as the nation’s top airline for on-time performance at 92.1 percent, which was also the best score of any airline for the past two years.
Hawaiian ranked second nationally for mishandled baggage reports (AirTran was No 1) and for denied boarding performance (JetBlue was No 1) and the company’s customer complaint rate was better than the industry average.
Overall Southwest was rated the most passenger friendly airline in the survey.
Its score of 32 percent was almost three times greater than JetBlue in second place.
In a comment on the survey, the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation said, “While these measures are certainly germane to travellers—arriving hours late without a bag will definitely sour one’s mood—the weakness of such studies is that the overall experience, with its indignities and annoyances, is very difficult to rank.
“With new and burgeoning charges, as well as a widespread perception that for many travelers ‘service’ now means little more than a canned greeting and a request for the credit card to pay for amenities, most airlines are still not ‘delighting’ their patrons.”
Ian Jarrett
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