Airline service likely to deteriorate

Rip Watson

Tuesday, April 6, 2004 | 10:48 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. airline service probably will worsen this year and next after improving for four straight years because the air-traffic control system can't handle a rebound in passenger traffic since 2001, according to a survey by two academics who follow the industry.

The Federal Aviation Administration's failure to exploit technology will result in more delays and complaints, Brent Bowen of the University of Nebraska and Dean Headley of Wichita State University said in their 15th annual study. Their survey of the 14 busiest U.S. airlines ranked JetBlue Airways Corp. the top carrier for service, followed by Alaska Air Group Inc., Southwest Airlines Co. and America West Airlines.

The number of passengers flying U.S. airlines is forecast to climb to a record 731.8 million in 2005 after falling below 2000 levels in the years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the aviation agency said last month. A pickup in business trips and rising consumer confidence boosted travel.

"We are quite certain that as customers come back and full capacity is reached, complaints will grow," Bowen said. "It is unfortunate that we didn't use this intervening time to improve the air traffic control system. We had the opportunity to expedite deployment of new technology."

The annual study creates an "airline quality rating" score for airlines, based on government information on delays, complaints, mishandled bags and passengers bumped from flights because airlines overbooked.

FAA spokesman William Shumann said the agency took "strong objection" to the study. The agency has "taken a number of steps to reduce delays," he said.

It has for instance used technology to steer planes around thunderstorms, the largest single reason for air-traffic delays, and next year will make changes letting planes fly closer together vertically to increase the number of flights. FAA has a 10-year plan to increase capacity by 3 percent annually, Shumann said.

Delays have receded from record levels in 2000 as airlines eliminated flights following the Sept. 11 attacks. On-time arrivals stood at 82 percent for the second year in row, up from less than 75 percent in 2000, the professors said. Complaints fell by 50 percent last year and the industry's total score improved 4.2 percent from 2002 and 2003, and is now 44 percent better than in 2000, the report said.

Every airline except US Airways Group Inc. and AMR Corp.'s American Airlines offered better service in 2003 than they did in 2002, the study found. JetBlue was excluded from last year's ratings because it didn't have enough flights.

US Airways finished fifth, followed by Northwest Airlines Corp. and Continental Airlines Inc. Two low-cost carriers were ranked lower than network carriers, with AirTran Holdings Inc.'s airline finishing in eighth place and ATA Holdings Corp.'s ATA airline ending up 10th.

Northwest has reduced the number of delays and mishandled bags and made "great strides" in customer service, said Mary Stanik, a spokeswoman for St. Paul, Minn.-based Northwest, which showed the most improvement in the survey.

The three largest U.S. carriers, AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and Delta Air Lines Inc. finished no better than ninth.