America’s Worst Airlines
Via Forbes.com….
As air travelers’ summer of hell draws to a close, stories of canceled flights, lost luggage and late arrivals abound. But while it might seem that the whole system is a mess, which carriers are actually the biggest culprits?
Other than Jet Blue’s much publicized ice storm fiasco in February, customers seem to be engaged in a general rage against the industry machine. And it’s true that some common annoyances, like long security lines, come courtesy of the government and tend to affect airlines across the board.
The Top Ten Worst, according to Forbes are:
1 – Atlantic Southeast (Delta carrier)
2 – Comair (Delta carrier)
3 – American Eagle (American carrier)
4 – ExpressJet
5 – US Airways (*shocking!!!!*) - On-time performance: 68.3% (third worst), Baggage mishandling: 8.6 per 1,000 passengers (seventh)
6 – American Airlines
7 – Mesa Airlines (United carrier)
8 – Delta Airlines
9 – United Airlines
10 – Alaska Airlines
But we need more than the just the provisions being pushed in the “Air Passenger Bill of Rights.”
Some of us actually want/need to get from one place to another in the same day. And we want to be treated like customers (or at least human beings). For example, if I owned a restaurant that satisfied my customers only 50-60% of the time, and had only nasty waiters and waitresses, that restaurant would be out of business tomorrow.
In addition to the Bill of Rights’ ideas to force the airlines to stop holding us hostage on the tarmac, we actually need the airlines to simply do their jobs: Get us there on time and treat us with respect.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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Heading to Israel in November on Continental. It’s not on the list, but I’ll be crossing my fingers for an uneventful journey, nonetheless! An Iranian nuke, not withstanding, of course!
Comment by LesbianNeoCon — September 28, 2007 @ 8:10 am - September 28, 2007
Air travel is too cheap . Too many people travelling. Someone needs to get some high speed trains going to offset the horrible flying experience that exists now.
Comment by JES — September 28, 2007 @ 10:52 am - September 28, 2007
These are the worst of the survivors. Eastern was the worlds worst for me followed by United. When I return to the U.S I use TACA enen if it costs a little more than American, Continetal, or Delta. They pull away from the gate late but always manage to make up time and arrive on time. Service in the Executive Class is the best I´ve experienced since TWA. Service in tourist class is also above average and food is still included. Continental delayed my bagage.
Comment by Roberto — September 28, 2007 @ 1:44 pm - September 28, 2007
No wonder my gut is telling me to drive cross country to my niece’s Bat Mitzvah.
Comment by Dan (AKA GPW) — September 28, 2007 @ 4:12 pm - September 28, 2007
For example, if I owned a restaurant that satisfied my customers only 50-60% of the time, and had only nasty waiters and waitresses, that restaurant would be out of business tomorrow.
If that were the case, would you want the federal government to step in and tell you how you MUST run your business?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 28, 2007 @ 7:31 pm - September 28, 2007
The best part is that they define “on time” as “up to 20 minutes after scheduled arrival.” Try telling your boss that the next time you walk into a meeting after it already starts.
I think a huge part of the problem is hubs. They cut costs, but a problem with any one flight coming into the hub causes a chain of delays to/from other destinations the rest of the day, and God help everyone if there’s weather near the hub. I once had a flight from Des Moines to Denver canceled on a clear summer day because the runways at O’Hare were closed.
Comment by Radish — September 29, 2007 @ 2:08 am - September 29, 2007
Air travel has become a commodity. As such, service and experience are ignored because they are not sufficiently valued by consumers – low price shopping wins. I think the exception is Southwest, which manages to provide good service, friendly (and funny) help and low prices at the same time.
The other exceptions, for those who can afford them, are biz-jets and the new jet-taxis – which only aggravate the problem! And as the problem gets worse, the incentive to use private jets will increase, making the problem even worse – a spiral of positive feedback.
On the other hand, a major cause (big surprise!) is the federal government bureaucracy – the FAA Air Traffic System – which is little changed since the ’50s when the Grand Canyon mid-air of two airliners allowed the to pretty well take control of all air travel.
FAA funnels traffic into defined corridors, air freeways, which naturally get clogged as demand increases. There is one purpose for this (other than bureaucratic ones) – to prevent any more embarrassing mid-air collisions. These same freeways are occupied by the rapidly increasing number of business jets and jet taxis, which take up the same amount of air/time space as airliners full of passengers. There are no car-pool lanes!
A rational approach, of course, would use the great advances in computation, sensors and radio communications to provide a distributed conflict/collision avoidance approach, with aircraft flying end-point to end-point instead of way-point to way-point, and flow control only exercised between the endpoints.. The FAA has this in the works (NextGen) but, of course, it will be a decade or more before it goe sinto practice.
The airspace is vast, but most of it is unused.
You government at work.
Comment by John Moore — September 29, 2007 @ 2:42 pm - September 29, 2007
Here’s a Useless Airways story:
Sounds like the woman was a bit unhinged but, maybe, she’d just had enough.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AIRPORT_DEATH?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
Comment by Robert — September 29, 2007 @ 11:20 pm - September 29, 2007
Oh, forgot my point… she died in a holding cell. Apparently she managed to strangle herself trying to free herself from the handcuffs (not too bright).
Comment by Robert — September 29, 2007 @ 11:21 pm - September 29, 2007
And this is US Air’s fault… how?
Comment by the friendly grizzly — September 30, 2007 @ 11:45 am - September 30, 2007
I didn’t say it was US Air’s fault… just idle speculation.
The run-around most of us encounter while traveling (regardless of airline) is almost enough to send most people off the rails.
Comment by Robert — September 30, 2007 @ 3:18 pm - September 30, 2007
Guess what folks, it was the governmental de-regulation of the airline industry that did this. I didn’t fly much at that time, but I knwo frequent flyers who traveled before and after and they point to de-regulatin as the turning point in airline service. so, there ya go.
This complaining is alos indicative of what sheep people in this country with increased security. on a recent flight, we were all herded onto the plane and the moment the last person sat down, they annunced the flight was delayed, but now of course you could use your cell phone. of course, more than 1/2 the plane started gabbing. a couple of people (including myself) walked up and asked if we could walk back the gate waiting area to wait for takeoff time. The attendant looked completely indignant, insisted she had to ask someone in charge and then (very begrudgingly) told us we could get off the plane, but snidely said we better not leave the gate area ’cause the plane might take off any moment. we had a really good chuckle walking back to the gate. Of course within 10 minutes, they announced the flight was then cancelled…
A lot of what goes on with these airlines is all about controlling people. With all the “security” we have now, the people who work on these planes feel that they are acting as security and control with the passengers.
Why do you keep complaining about US Scare? just take another airline and stop moaning.
Comment by Kevin — September 30, 2007 @ 9:44 pm - September 30, 2007
#12
Wow. You’re showing your age.
A lot of what goes on with these airlines is all about controlling people.
I used to work in reservations/customer care for one of the legacy carriers so I’ll field this one (ahem):
It’s really quite simple, if you don’t, passengers will wander off and do what they want to do and if they miss their flight, they’ll stomp their feet and raise hell because you didn’t tell them to stay in the boarding area.
Rule #1 in our office was The only constant is change. Depending on the reason for the delay, you might actually get the aircraft ready to go a lot sooner than you thought or you might even get another aircraft to replace the one you’re on. If you let folks wander off, that jacks with the other 100 or so who didn’t. Of course the airline can’t sit around all day waiting for a handful of folks who think they’re more important than the rest and can do whatever they want.
Of course if you’re able to leave earlier than expected, you leave those behind who wandered off. Eventually they show back up and demand to know why the flight didn’t wait for them to take their sweet ass time and show up whenever they were damn good and ready. The folks that pay $200 for a ticket usually believe they’ve leased the whole plane and bitch the worst. So instead of dealing with bitchy, self-centered customers, the path of least resistance, in the long run, is to advise them to stay in the boarding area.
I still remember this one time I was travelling (non-rev) from TPA-IAH to hook up with TGCpartner. I showed up early as usual and there was a woman on the train with me from the parking garage to landside. I went through to the gate and waited. It turned out during boarding that there was one seat available and I was next on the list. The gate agent had already made the final boarding calls and started calling this woman’s name over the PA. After the third call, she finally strolled up with her newspaper and Starbucks (which she didn’t have on the train) and got the seat. Yeah she was a paying passenger and I wasn’t, but the point is that she strolled up to the gate when she was damn good and ready. If the airlines didn’t “herd” people, they would never get anywhere and if they did, there’d be a lot more pissed off passengers because they didn’t hold the plane for them.
Want an example of what some of the worst passengers are like? Just Google Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee + Continental Airlines (actually Google doesn’t show the good stuff, but you should be able to get a good idea).
I can go on if you’d like.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — October 1, 2007 @ 6:19 am - October 1, 2007
BTW, I’d still like Bruce or anybody else to explain to me why we need the federal government to tell the airlines how to run their business. Especially when the government’s plans won’t matter a damn.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — October 1, 2007 @ 6:23 am - October 1, 2007
Guess what folks, it was the governmental de-regulation of the airline industry that did this.
Of course.
But not for the reasons you’re thinking.
What deregulation did was to make it possible for airlines to service markets based ON the market, not on some governmental whim of where they should and should not be flying. That made flying both less expensive and more accessible.
I promise you that I would not be flying transcontinental at this month’s end for $258 under deregulation. Yes, it won’t be in the most comfortable seat, yes, there’s a good odds I’ll be delayed, and so forth….but pre-deregulation, I would have been paying thousands, rather than hundreds, to do it.
I can live with the simple stuff outlined on the Passenger Bill of Rights, but my answer would be this; any flight that is delayed more than three hours is automatically cancelled, must disembark its passengers within a half hour of being cancelled, and must provide either a full refund to its passengers or equivalent transport to their destination within 24 hours.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — October 1, 2007 @ 1:59 pm - October 1, 2007
Thank Allah I’m not flying today. Oy!
Comment by Jim Hoplite — November 21, 2007 @ 3:52 pm - November 21, 2007
US Air is not doing a good job of getting people to their destinations. They keep overbooking and putting people off, its just not good business.
Steve
Comment by PHL Parking Authority — February 4, 2008 @ 1:32 pm - February 4, 2008
US Airways SUCKS.
I have a $646.19 credit for a flight. I want to use my $646.19 credit towards a new flight that only cost $300. I was told that I would be stuck with a $150 change fee but my credit was large enough to cover that. US Airways now wants me to pay an additional $150 on a credit card and forfiet the remaining balance. How does that make sense? A $300 flight is now going to cost $800.
Now I know why I prefer to fly Southwest.
Comment by J. Rowland — March 10, 2010 @ 12:07 am - March 10, 2010