Austin WindsorEmily Waugh

Tiffany VidonishFeng Wang

This has caused airlines to lose 26% less luggage in 2009 than 2008

Complaints are down 16% over the same time period

Flight cancelations decreased and on-time arrivals increased from 75% to 78%

The average time of delay of a flight dropped to 55 minutes

Fewer flights More fees Travel decline because of the recession

made airports and the skies less crowded Reduced flight delays and cancellations

when bad weather or other problems forced airlines to thin out schedules

Fewer passengers and heftier baggage fees reduced the number of checked luggage, so the airlines lost fewer bags

2009 led to more bumping of ticket holders from flights

As airlines shrank schedules to save money and packed more customers onto each flight, overbooking increased which led to passengers being bumped

This still occurred even though the Department of transportation doubled the penalty for bumping passengers

The rate at which airlines denied passengers rose 9%

The rate at which people voluntarily took vouchers rose 15%

AirlineCanceled Flights

Complaints per 100,000 Fliers

On-Time Arrivals

Bumped Fliers per 10,000

Baggage Reports per 1,000

AirTran Airways

0.64% 0.99 75.99% 0.24 1.65

Alaska Airlines

1.01% 0.55 82.38% 2.10 4.06

American Airlines

1.53% 1.08 75.70% 0.50 4.35

Continental Airlines

0.47% 1.01 77.91% 1.39 2.72

Delta Air Lines*

0.87% 1.67 78.55% 1.08 4.07

JetBlue Airways

1.15% 0.89 77.20% 0 2.54

Southwest Airlines

0.69% 0.21 82.47% 1.29 3.40

United Airlines

1.58% 1.34 80.54% 1.26 4.02

US Airways 1.06% 1.31 80.51% 1.49 2.97

Industry Average

1.45% 0.99 78.71% 1.22 3.89

On-time statistics are important for travelers to follow because they are a solid indicator for how well an airline is performing

These statistics are a strong indicator of whether or not a trip will encounter delays and disruptions

Airlines that run close to on-time typically operate well in other aspects of their business, from employee helpfulness to toilet cleanliness

Historically, airline mergers can be disruptive for customers as two carriers try to combine computer systems, fleets, maintenance operations and work forces

So far the merger has been fairly smooth In 2009 their on time performance

ranked 4th among major airlines Baggage handling improved, but among

the 9 major airlines it ranked 8th

Also, it was last among the major airlines in customer complaints

In 2009, Chicago’s O’Hare airport opened a new runway

It caused major turnaround, with 77% of flights arriving on time, compared to 67% in 2008

O'Hare's operational performance benefitted from having fewer flights scheduled at the airport

United Airlines uses O’Hare as its main hub and benefited considerably from the new runway

United also launched a revitalization plan which increased their on-time flight arrivals to 80%

Only major airline to have a lower rate of on-time arrivals in 2009 compared to 2008

This dropped them from 4th place to 8th place among the 9 major airlines

Although their on-time arrivals dropped, they had the best improvement in baggage handling and finished the year with the lowest rate of baggage problems

Despite a DOT crackdown on airline bumping, overbooking has increased

Trying to deal with financial losses, airlines have packed planes full

More flights were overbooked, with airlines trying to entice volunteers to give up seats in exchange for vouchers toward future trips

The airline has to pay the customer compensation equal to the one-way fare up to $400 if he or she is rescheduled to reach the destination within two hours of the original arrival time for domestic, and four hours for international flights

Customers are entitled to $800 if they reach their destination after those times. (Customers can demand cash instead of airline vouchers if involuntarily denied boarding, but volunteers can't.)

Alaskan Airlines was the worst at overbooking and involuntarily denied boarding to 2,344 passengers