CourtesyWASHINGTON, D.C. 鈥� After four years at the top of the Airline Quality Rating, Virgin America slipped to third in 2016, and the airline it announced a merger with last year 鈥� Alaska Airlines 鈥� has finished No. 1, with Delta coming in at a close second, according to the 27th annual Airline Quality Rating (AQR), released today (Monday, April 10) at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
A joint research project funded as part of faculty research activities at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at 黑洞社区 (Wichita, Kansas) and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University鈥檚 Prescott, Arizona, 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.
鈥淭he 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,鈥� said Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at 黑洞社区. 鈥淎ir travel is great again 鈥� that statement can be followed with a period, exclamation point or question mark depending on the individual鈥檚 perspective.鈥�
In April 2016, Seattle-based Alaska Air Group publicly announced it would be acquiring Virgin America in 2017 to form the nation鈥檚 fifth-largest airline. The 2016 Department of Transportation (DOT) data used in the study listed the airlines as separate entities.
鈥淭hese 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,鈥� said study co-researcher Brent Bowen, dean of College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University鈥檚 Prescott, Arizona, campus. 鈥淒elta, for example, has been recovering from merger complications for several years and has climbed its way back to be a close contender for No. 1. It will be interesting to see if Alaska / Virgin America can avoid the common post-merger decline in performance. If combined they can stay at No. 1, it will be a significant departure from the past.鈥�
An electronic version of the full report, with details on each airline, is available at . Also at the website is a new feature where passengers can provide information and comments about their personal flying experiences via the 2017 Airline Passenger Survey.
Inside this year鈥檚 rating
Below is the 2016 numerical ranking of the nation鈥檚 leading 12 airlines, according to the Airline Quality Rating, with the 2015 ranking in parentheses:
1. Alaska (5)
2. Delta (3)
3. Virgin America (1)
4. JetBlue (2)
5. Hawaiian (4)
6. Southwest (6)
7. SkyWest (7)
8. United (8)
9. American (10)
10. ExpressJet (9)
11. Spirit (13)
12. Frontier (11)
NOTE: The 2015 rating included 13 airlines. Envoy is not rated in 2016.
On-time performance
Hawaiian Airlines had the best on-time performance (91.1 percent) for 2016, and Spirit had the worst (74.3 percent).
Nine airlines improved their on-time arrival performance in 2016. Six of the 12 airlines rated had an on-time arrival percentage of better than 80 percent. On-time performance for the industry in 2016 was 81.4 percent, compared to 79.9 percent in 2015.
Involuntary denied boardings
Hawaiian and Delta were the industry leaders in avoiding involuntary denied boarding incidents in 2016 with a rate of 0.05 and 0.10 per 10,000 passengers, respectively. ExpressJet (1.51) had the highest involuntary denied boarding rate per 10,000 passengers.
Seven airlines improved their denied boarding rate in 2016. SkyWest recorded the greatest improvement.
Overall, the industry had 0.62 denied boardings per 10,000 passengers in 2016, compared to 0.76 in 2015. This is the best rate since the AQR started in 1991.
Baggage handling
Virgin America had the best baggage handling rate (1.03 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers) of all airlines, and ExpressJet had the worst baggage handling rate (4.31 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers).
Nine airlines had improved mishandled baggage rates in 2016. The industry rate decreased from 3.24 per 1,000 passengers in 2015 to 2.70 in 2016. This is the best rate since the AQR started in 1991.
Consumer complaints
Southwest had the lowest consumer complaint rate (0.47 per 100,000 passengers) of all airlines. Spirit had the highest consumer complaint rate (6.74 per 100,000 passengers).
Customer complaints per 100,000 passengers decreased from 1.90 in 2015 to 1.52 in 2016. The majority of complaints (73.5 percent) to the DOT were for flight problems (41.4 percent), baggage (12.0 percent), customer service (10.5 percent), and reservations, ticketing and boarding (9.6 percent).
More about the Airline Quality Rating
As the nation鈥檚 longest-running study of airline performance quality, the Airline Quality Rating (airlinequalityrating.com) sets the industry standard, providing consumers and industry watchers with a means to compare performance quality among airlines using objective performance-based data.
No other study in the country is based on performance measures like the AQR. Criteria included in the report are screened to meet two basic elements: They must be readily obtainable from published data sources for each airline, and they must be important to consumers regarding airline quality. The resulting criteria include areas such as baggage handling, customer complaints, denied boardings and on-time arrivals.