More airline bad news: complaints and unruliness on rise
Complaints about air service are rising and so are reports of unruly passenger behavior.
US airline passengers in numbers have gone up to similar levels before 9-11, according to an annual survey.
But complaints are also up. The biggest: lost luggage.
Complaints increased 17% last year compared to 2004.
“We’ve got the same problems we had five years ago,” said Dean Headley, a professor at Wichita State University in Kansas.
He was co-author of the yearly study called the Airline Quality Rating. The study is sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s aviation institute and Wichita State.
The study showed Southwest Airlines had the lowest rate of complaints, while US Airways had the highest.
ATA was the worst for denied boardings, while JetBlue was the best.
AirTran had the best baggage handling rate, while Atlantic Southeast had the worst, mishandling 17.41 bags per 1,000 passengers.
A spokesman for the Air Transport Association said the airlines were trying to cope with issues that are not always controllable.
“They’re dealing with weather delays, air traffic control delays and new security measures,” said David Castelveter.
Meanwhile, airlines and federal regulators say reports of unruly passenger behavior have remained high since 9-11.
There were 349 cases of unruly passengers reported last year, the second highest total in the past decade.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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