Airline service worsens

Jonathan D. Salant

Wednesday, April 4, 2001 | 10:52 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Airline flights arrived behind schedule more often and more passengers complained about service despite industry promises to improve, a new study says.

An annual review of airline quality conducted by two university professors also found more passengers bumped from overcrowded flights and more mishandled checked baggage.

"The airlines promised to do better. Things got worse. That's not encouraging," said report co-author Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University.

Based on data collected by the Transportation Department, the report found that last year:

* Flights of 10 major carriers were on time 72.6 percent of the time, down from 76.1 percent in 1999.

* The Transportation Department received 2.98 complaints for every 100,000 passengers, a 20 percent increase over the 2.48 in 1999.

* For every 1,000 bags checked, airlines mishandled or lost 5.29, up from 5.08 in 1999.

* The rate of passengers being bumped against their wishes rose from 0.88 per 10,000 in 1999 to 1.04.

Delta won the highest rating for passenger service among major airlines, followed by Alaska and Southwest. America West received the lowest ranking. In 1999 Southwest was the highest-ranked airline and United was the lowest, with Delta third from the top. United was ranked next to last this year.

"We're obviously pleased to be recognized," Delta spokesman John Kennedy said. "It acknowledges Delta's improvement in customer service. What we're doing ... is to focus our efforts on customers' needs in these critical service areas."

America West spokeswoman Patty Nowack said the airline has dramatically improved service since the end of 2000.

"If the study was conducted in the first quarter of 2001, you would see America West's performance going against the trend," Nowack said. "We've improved our on-time performance, have less mishandled bags and fewer customer complaints."

When Congress was considering legislation in 1999, the airlines and the Transportation Department instead agreed on a package of voluntary standards. The department's inspector general reported in February that customer service had improved but still had a long way to go.

The Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill this year to make the airlines' voluntary consumer guidelines a legal contract with passengers; require airlines to disclose on-time performance of flights when customers buy tickets or make reservations; and require the industry to establish a timetable for reducing the number of flights delayed at least 30 minutes. Legislation also has been introduced in the House.

The professors said they believed Congress ultimately would pass some legislation to help airline passengers.

"We cannot see many years of continuous airline quality diminishing without some sort of regulatory action," said the report's other co-author, Brent Bowen, director of the aviation institute at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Airline industry officials noted that the inspector general in his February report cited substantial improvements in customer service.

"To ignore the positive steps that have been taken is simply disingenuous and misleading to the public," said Michael Wascom, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the trade group for the major airlines. "No one can argue that we are not fulfilling our commitments."

In addition, airline industry officials are expected to announce this week that voluntary service commitments will become part of the legal contract with passengers beginning May 1; and a new task force of airline, airport and Federal Aviation Administration representatives has been set up to develop ways of providing timely and accurate information about delays and cancellations to passengers.

Industry officials have blamed the problem largely on an air traffic system inadequate to handle the sharp growth in airline traffic. The number of passengers on U.S. airlines rose from 600 million in 1995 to 733 million in 2000, the Federal Aviation Administration says.

Bowen said the airlines are making the problem worse by overscheduling flights at peak times.

"You can't put 15 airplanes to take off when you can only handle five or 10," Bowen said. "Some thing's got to give, and it's usually you and me sitting on the tarmac."