Airline passengers have more to complain about, report finds

Airline passengers have more to complain about, report finds

- COMPLAINTS: Consumer complaints to the government jumped 22 percent in 2014. Best: Alaska Airlines. Worst: Frontier.

Regional carriers, which operate flights under names like American Eagle, United Express and Delta Connection, tend to earn the worst marks. They fly smaller planes, so when airlines are forced to cut flights due to bad weather, they ground the regionals first to inconvenience fewer passengers.

But the picture was bleak at the four biggest U.S. airlines too. On-time performance fell and complaint rates rose at American, United, Delta and Southwest.

Headley said airlines performed better in the years after 2001, when travel demand fell and planes were less crowded. Airlines were also losing money. They returned to profitability when mergers reduced competition and the remaining airlines limited flights to keep fares up. The average plane is now more than 80 percent full at most airlines, and many flights are oversold.

“They have put the same number of people in fewer airplanes,” Headley said in an interview. “Anytime the system ramps up, it goes haywire.”

Airlines are ordering new planes and making other investments that they promise will lead to better service. Many of the biggest improvements are targeted at the airlines’ most valued customers – those in first-class and business-class sections.

The annual report is now in its 25th year. Headley and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University professor Brent Bowen use information that the airlines submit to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

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David Koenig can be reached at http://ift.tt/1krSMkk

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