Airline Hubris: How About Service, On-Time Flights First?

Airline Hubris: On-Time Flights and Customer Service First

U.S. Airline Hubris is High, But On-Time Flights and Customer Service Aren't. How about airlines such as JetBlue, United, and Southwest get back to basics in terms of on-time flights and customer service (or “luv” given Southwest's ticker symbol) before making takeover bids (JetBlue's bid for Spirit Airlines) or proclaiming that the airline will be “the best airline in the history of aviation” (United). Southwest in the past has engendered incredible customer loyalty, reflected in its tag lines over the years, from “Just Plane Smart” to “”The Somebody Else Up There Who Loves You,” but passengers aren't exactly feeling the love with the most recent flight cancellations and delays (see JetBlue, Southwest Cancel or Delay Most of Their Flights 4/2/22). Here are yesterday's statistics for cancelled and delayed flights:

(Listed in order of percentage of flights cancelled)

JetBlue: 13% cancelled, 55% delayed = 68% of flights impacted
Spirit: 6% cancelled, 46% delayed = 52% of flights impacted
Delta: 5% cancelled, 21% delayed = 26% of flights impacted
Alaska Airlines: 5% cancelled, 21% delayed = 26% of flights impacted
United: 3% cancelled, 24% delayed = 27% of flights impacted
Southwest: 0% cancelled, 36% delayed = 36% of flights impacted

Customer Complaints

US DOT Air Travel Consumer Reports are compiled a few months after the month in question, so the below are the complaints per 100,000 passengers for December 2021, from worst (Spirit) to best (Southwest):

Spirit: 9.76
Frontier: 7.59
JetBlue: 6.77
United: 4.39
Alaska: 3.44
American Airlines: 3.29
Hawaiian Airlines: 2.31
Delta Air Lines: 1.86
Southwest: .95

While Spirit was the worst in terms of passenger complaints in December, JetBlue, which used to get great reviews in terms of passenger experience, was only two spots after Spirit. JetBlue may still be a strange suitor for Spirit, given JetBlue's promotion of its JetBlue Mint Suite and JetBlue Mint Studio to London, but high and rising passenger complaints give Spirit and JetBlue something in common.

United Will Be the “Biggest and Best Airline in the History of Aviation”

It takes a lot of chutzpah for any U.S. airline to make the claim that it will establish itself as the “biggest and best airline in the history of aviation,” especially one known for the 2017 incident where Dr. David Dao was forcibly dragged off a plane, bloodied, with a concussion and missing teeth. And when United's four pillars to ostensibly get to “biggest and best” have customer service, via its Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a lowly 3rd pillar (after “United Next” adds 500 new aircraft and “Operational Excellence,” with its focus on-time departures (but what about on-time arrivals, long phone hold times, and failing to pay EC 261/2004 compensation, as we wrote in EU Compensation for Delayed U.S. Connecting Flight?), well. Good luck, but color us skeptical. It's not a surprise that with the U.S. airline market an oligopoly that is still consolidating, customer service languishes. What a pity that cabotage laws prevent foreign carriers from flying 5th freedom routes in the U.S., as we can think of a number of airlines we'd prefer to fly over United, if we could: Singapore Suites and Singapore Business Class; JAL First Class and JAL Sky Suite Business Class; ANA First Class; Qantas First Class; SWISS Business Class; Austrian Business Class; Qatar Qsuites Business Class, to name a few.