Alaska, Delta Finish No. 1, 2 in New Airline Quality Rating While Overall Airline Industry Posts Best-Ever Results

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A joint research project funded as part of faculty research activities at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University (Wichita, Kan.) and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Prescott, Ariz., campus, the most recent AQR also showed that industry performance improved in all four core elements tracked by the study: on-time performance, rate of involuntary denied boardings, rate of mishandled bags and the rate of customer complaints.
Nine of the 12 airlines improved in three categories (on-time, baggage handling and customer complaints), and seven of the 12 airlines improved in all four categories. Airlines that performed better in 2016 were Alaska, American, Delta, ExpressJet, Frontier, SkyWest, Southwest, Spirit and United. Those whose scores declined in 2016 were Hawaiian, JetBlue and Virgin America.
“The best-ever overall industry AQR score is largely due to best-ever performance in the rate of involuntary denied boardings and the rate of mishandled bags,” said Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. “Air travel is great again – that statement can be followed with a period, exclamation point or question mark depending on the individual’s perspective.”
In April 2016, Seattle-based Alaska Air Group publicly announced it would be acquiring Virgin America in 2017 to form the nation’s fifth-largest airline. The 2016 Department of Transportation (DOT) data used in the study listed the airlines as separate entities.
“These results provide a rare insight into the airline merger arena. We have a carrier, Alaska, that wanted to improve performance, began improvement plans before any merger announcement, and is currently taking over the top performer, Virgin America. Going from fifth to first is rare, but a devoted corporate resolve can make that happen,” said study co-researcher Brent Bowen, dean of College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Prescott, Ariz., campus. “Delta, for example, has been recovering from merger complications for several years ...

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