WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Alaska Airlines has topped the annual Airline Quality Rating, narrowly edging out rival Delta Airlines. Overall, the airline industry has improved, with denied boardings down last year from 2016.
The Airline Quality Rating claims to be the most comprehensive study of performance and quality of the largest airlines in the United States. The study looks at four factors: mishandled baggage, consumer complaints, on-time performance, and involuntary denied boardings.
JetBlue and Hawaiian Airlines came in at No. 3 and 4 positions, respectively. While, SkyWest Airlines, Virgin America, United Airlines, American Airlines, ExpressJet, Frontier Airlines, and Spirit Airlines, rounded off top 10.
The Airline Quality Rating industry score for 2017 shows an industry that improved in overall performance quality over the previous year. The 2017 score of -0.79 is the best AQR score in the 27 year history of the rating.
Nine airlines, including American, ExpressJet, Frontier, Hawaiian, JetBlue, SkyWest, Southwest, Spirit and United, showed improvement in AQR scores in 2017. Three airlines, including Alaska, Delta and Virgin America all had a decline in their 2017 AQR score from the previous year.
Involuntary denied boardings by the industry improved to 0.34 per 10,000 passengers in 2017 from 0.62 per 10,000 passengers in 2016.
The industry mishandled baggage rate was better, decreasing from 2.70 per 1,000 passengers in 2016 to 2.46 per 1,000 passengers in 2017.
The consumer complaint rate across the industry declined to 1.35 per 100,000 passengers in 2017 from 1.52 per 100,000 passengers in 2016.
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