Frequent flier Margaret Bowles says she likes Southwest Airlines because it doesn’t charge extra to book flights over the phone, change flights or check bags. And, she says, boarding is organized and stress-free.
“Southwest treats customers much better than any other airline I fly and still manages to remain profitable without nickel-and-diming people to death,” says the Tampa lawyer. “I can’t figure out why all the airlines cannot follow Southwest’s blueprint for success.”
Those are among the reasons consumers rank Southwest and smaller airlines JetBlue, Hawaiian and Frontier much higher than traditional, big-network airlines, a USA TODAY analysis of 2005-2010 government and consumer survey data shows.
USA TODAY ranked 12 U.S. airlines based on Transportation Department consumer complaint statistics, the Airline Quality Rating system by professors at Wichita State and Purdue universities, and consumer surveys by Zagat Survey and J.D. Power and Associates.
Southwest’s high scores are notable because until Delta Air Lines merged recently with Northwest, it was carrying more passengers annually on domestic routes than any other U.S. airline.
“Southwest is built on great customer service, excellent on-time performance, excellent baggage handling and a low rate of customer complaints,” says spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger. “We take the rankings seriously and improve on the operations that need work and celebrate those that are positive.”
That consumers have positive attitudes toward any airline stands out at a time when few travelers are happy with a financially struggling industry that has begun charging extra for services that used to be included in the price of a ticket, has cut back on flights and suffers from the impression that airlines don’t care if customers are delayed or don’t get where they planned.
Many of the airlines that rank toward the bottom in the USA TODAY analysis suffer for many or all those reasons. And largely for those reasons, a Gallup…