Report blames mergers for drop in quality of US airlines
US airlines fared poorly in 2014 for performance, a reversal compared to the previous four years which had seen continuing improvement.
The annual Airline Quality Rating report found declines in all four areas reviewed – baggage handling, consumer complaints, denied boardings and on-time arrivals – for the nation’s 12 major carriers.
"It’s unfortunate, and we hope it’s not the beginning of a downward trend," said co-author Brent Bowen of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
He cited ongoing integrations of recent mergers as a likely cause in part for the drop in standards.
"Airline performance after two airlines merge always goes down for several years while they’re working out the kinks," Bowen said.
On-time arrivals fell from an average 78.4% in 2013 to 76.2% last year with only Frontier Airlines and JetBlue Airways showing year-over-year improvement.
The number of mishandled bags rose from 3.21 per 1,000 passengers in 2013 to 3.62 in 2014 while complaints were up from 1.13 per 100,000 passengers in 2013 to 1.38 in 2014.
Wichita State University’s Dean Headley, who also co-authored the report, said the results are hardly a surprise as flyers can see the quality of air travel is deteriorating.
"We just got the numbers to prove it," he said.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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