US survey shames airlines with the rudest flight attendants
Findings from a new poll assessing the rudeness rating of 14 North American airlines has thrown up a few surprises.
The results of the Airfarewatchdog commissioned survey found flight attendants at Spirit Airlines to be the rudest of the 14 airlines assessed.
But coming second behind Spirit’s 26% share of the poll was Air Canada at 11% and Virgin America in fourth with 9%.
Even Airfarewatchdog founder and president George Hobica found the Virgin America ranking a surprise, especially as it had come out top in an Airline Quality Rating study just weeks ago.
Alaska Airlines and Southwest fared best for flight crew customer experience, each garnering just 1% of the vote.
A total of 3,400 frequent fliers were asked to choose from 14 airlines. The results were weighted by the number of passengers flown by each airline between January and October last year, to allow for the fact that larger airlines will naturally have a bigger response.
Here is the survey’s full results:
Spirit — 26%
Air Canada — 14%
Frontier — 11%
Virgin America — 9%
Allegiant — 8%
United — 7%
US Airways — 7%
American — 5%
AirTran — 3%
Delta — 2%
Hawaiian — 3%
JetBlue — 3%
Alaska — 1%
Southwest — 1%
by Ray Montgomery, Editor TravelMole US
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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