Air Passengers Fed Up With Poor Service, Survey Finds

U.S. airlines spent a lot of time last year promising things would get better for their customers, but a new study suggests just the opposite occurred: Consumer complaints more than doubled.

“You can see that consumers are just fed up, fed up with poor service,” Brent Bowen of the University of Nebraska at Omaha said in announcing the survey results Monday.

Consumer complaints were up 130% from 1998 to 1999, said Dean Headley of Wichita State University. They rose from 1.08 complaints per 100,000 passengers in 1998 to 2.48 per 100,000 last year.

Headley noted that improved Internet access made it easier to file complaints, but said that could not account for such a large increase.

The annual report, based on data collected by the Transportation Department, scores the air carriers on on-time performance, baggage handling, consumer complaints and denied boardings.

It found an overall decline in airline quality last year, with only baggage handling showing a slight improvement.

The airlines instituted a consumer bill of rights in December, after a year of pressure from Congress to improve service. A report to Congress by the Transportation Department’s inspector general on how they are doing is scheduled for June.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who pressed for legislation last year, said that if the upcoming report “shows anything resembling what this study shows, I think we can get a real passenger bill of rights through Congress.”

“The report demonstrates that the airlines are not following through on the voluntary program,” he said. “They, of course, claim that it’s early and they have just begun it . . . but this is an industry that again and again finds reasons to give passenger service short shrift.”

Diana Cronan of the Air Transport Assn., which represents the major airlines, noted that the airlines’ voluntary “customer first” plan was not put into effect until the end of the year.

“We really would like to see the results next year when the plan has been in place for a full year. We really do believe that things will be better,” she said.

Southwest Airlines ranked best overall, as it did in 1997. In 1998, the top spot went to USAirways, which fell to No. 6 in the new report.

This year, Continental finished second, followed by Delta, Northwest and Alaska Airlines. American was No. 7, followed by America West, TWA and United.

The report’s only good news involved baggage handling. The study found that the industry mishandled 5.08 bags per 1,000 passengers in 1999, down from 5.16 per 1,000 a year earlier.

On the other hand, there was a drop in the portion of flights that arrived within 15 minutes of schedule. On-time performance slipped from 77.2% to 76.1% and denied boardings was virtually stable, edging from 0.87 per 10,000 passengers to 0.88.

The study was particularly critical of airlines for instituting what they called a series of anti-consumer rules designed to increase productivity.

These include tighter limits on carry-on bags, bans on carry-on food, not allowing a consumer to take an earlier connection when a seat is available and raising fees to change tickets.

“Soon, consumers will become driven by price and schedule only and regard airline loyalty as having no tangible value,” the authors concluded.

The Transportation Department, which independently reports on airline performance, found similar problems through February.

Consumers registered 1,999 complaints about the 10 largest carriers in February, slightly down from January but nearly double a year earlier.

It found that 74.8% of flights arrived on time in February--also slightly better than in January but not as good as 78.9% in February 1999.

The airlines had a mishandled baggage rate of 4.81 reports per 1,000 passengers in February, an improvement from a year earlier.

Headley acknowledged the new passenger bill of rights instituted by airlines late last year and allowed that change does take time. But, he argued, the steps promised by the airlines were things they should have been doing already.

The carriers pledged to be more forthright with passengers all the way through their travel experience. They promised to volunteer the lowest air fares or cheaper travel options when people call for reservations and to give passengers at least 24 hours to cancel ticket purchases.

They also said they would update passengers at 15- to 20-minute intervals when there are delays.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Airline Complaints Soar

Airline quality declined in 1999 despite efforts by the carriers to improve service. The 10 major U.S. airlines carried nearly 500 million domestic airline passengers in 1999. The volume of consumer complaints rose 130% over 1998. Although improved reporting may account for some of the increase, it does not account for all of it. How the major airlines fared in four categories; best performers are in bold:

*--*

Percentage Bumped Mishandled of on-time per 10,000 baggage per Airline arrivals passengers 1,000 passengers Overall 76.1% 0.88 5.08 Alaska 71.0 0.91 5.75 America West 69.5 1.39 4.52 American 73.5 0.43 5.21 Continental 76.6 0.34 4.42 Delta 78.0 1.53 4.39 Northwest 79.9 0.18 4.81 Southwest 80.0 1.38 4.22 TWA 80.9 0.73 5.38 United 74.4 0.90 7.01 US Airways 71.4 0.52 5.08

Complaints per 100,000 Airline passengers Overall 2.48 Alaska 1.64 America West 3.73 American 3.50 Continental 2.62 Delta 1.82 Northwest 2.93 Southwest 0.40 TWA 3.45 United 2.66 US Airways 3.15

*--*

Sources: Airline Quality Rating 2000; Associated Press

Researched by NONA YATES/Los Angeles Times.