Airlines’ on-Time Record Poor in ’07
By D.R. Stewart, Tulsa World, Okla.
Feb. 6–U.S. airline passengers in 2007 were subjected to the second worst on-time performance in the past 13 years while complaints about canceled flights, delays, mishandled baggage and customer service soared, the federal government said Tuesday.
During a year of record snow and ice storms, congested airports and airways and increasing passenger traffic, U.S. commercial flights were more than 15 minutes late 26.6 percent of the time in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
In 2006, domestic flights were tardy about 24.5 percent of the time. The worst year was 2000, when airlines were late 27.4 percent of the time.
In December, U.S. airlines canceled 3.4 percent of their flights.
For the year, mishandled bags were up 4.4 percent; denied boardings or oversold flights rose 12 percent; and complaints increased 69.8 percent, officials said.
Among the complaint categories:
–Flight delay complaints rose 158 percent industrywide;
–Flight cancellation complaints increased 145 percent;
–Mishandled baggage complaints were up
49.5 percent;
–Reservations/ticketing/boarding complaints increased 48.4 percent;
–Misconnected flight complaints rose 37 percent; and
–Customer service complaints were up 33.9 percent.
Among individual carriers, American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, and American Eagle, its regional airline affiliate, ranked low in 2007 on-time performance, flight cancellations, mishandled baggage and overall complaints.
American’s 2007 on-time performance of 68.7 percent ranks 17th of 20 airlines. American Eagle’s 69.1 percent on-time performance places it 16th.
Southwest Airlines — which has 20 flights a day at Tulsa International Airport, more than any other carrier — had an on-time record of 80.1 percent, third best among the 20 carriers.
American Eagle is last of the 20 airlines with a flight cancellation rate of 8.3 percent. American ranks 13th with 3.4 percent of its scheduled flights canceled.
Southwest’s cancellation rate of 1.3 percent ranks fourth.
American Eagle ranked last among the 20 airlines with a rate of 13.55 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers. American was 11th with a rate of 7.25 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers.
Southwest, with a mishandled baggage rate of 5.87 per 1,000 passengers, ranks eighth.
Hawaiian Airlines, Aloha Airlines and Airtran Airways, rank one, two and three with 3.41, 3.88 and 4.06 mishandled bags, respectively, per thousand passengers.
Aloha and Southwest ranked first and second, respectively, in overall complaints with 0.21 and 0.26 complaints per 100,000 enplanements, up from 0.15 and 0.18 complaints in 2006.
American Eagle had 1.17 complaints per 100,000 enplanements, ranking 13th, and American, which ranked 17th, had 1.65 complaints per 100,000 enplanements.
The DOT said American — which operates about 2,000 flights a day, 16 of them in Tulsa — had 37 regularly scheduled flights in December that arrived late at least 80 percent of the time.
The chronically late American flights include those between Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and LaGuardia Airport in New York; between Newark International Airport and O’Hare; O’Hare and Miami International Airport; Boston Logan International Airport and O’Hare; O’Hare and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport; O’Hare and Los Angeles International Airport; Baltimore-Washington International Airport and DFW; DFW and LaGuardia; and Denver International Airport and DFW.
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D.R. Stewart 581-8451 don.stewart@tulsaworld.com
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