Survey finds flying cheap can be best..

[TEXAN AVIATOR]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/04/05/airline.study/index.html

The overall rankings for the airlines were:
1. JetBlue
2. Alaska
3. Southwest
4. America West
5. US Airways
6. Northwest
7. Continental
8. AirTran
9. United
10. ATA
11. American
12. Delta
13. American Eagle
14. Atlantic Southeast

 

[mar]

Alaska ain't foolin' around

The only one of those above that I fly regularly is Alaska. They have really gotten serious about being on-time.

No more Elastic Airlines.

They start boarding 40 mins prior to departure and *require* everyone in the gate area 30 mins prior. If not, they release the seat!

I applaud the effort to be on-time but I've already seen one pax pitch a fit right there at the podium when the TSA (who else?) held him up at security.

 

[Dan CFI/CFII]

My Dad is sort of an efficiency consultant (for hospitals, basically). He travels about 4 days of the week, and he has started keeping track of some basic efficiency things the different airlines do. He told me that Southwest averages 12 seconds from rolling to a stop, to when the door is open.

In contrast, United averages about a minute and a half.

I am always amazed, when I used to go watch airplanes come and go during my lunch hour, Southwest will land a plane, and it will taxi out again in about a half hour or so. Always at the exact same time, no matter what day it may have been. Compared to the traditional majors, that was a striking difference. If you are watching airplanes taking off and landing, you want to minimize the time spent sitting on the ram waiting for baggage or something. The upstarts are much more fun to watch

I'm fascinated with that stuff. It makes a big difference to customers. My Dad is in the top 1/2 percent of United's customers, but he will go out of his way to fly Southwest or Frontier.

Dan

 

[Ailerongirl]

Atlantic Southeast, also included in the survey for the first time, had the worst on-time performance, bumped the most people and mishandled baggage at a rate nearly four times the industry average. Yet the number of its customers who filed complaints was lower than the average for all 14 airlines.