Comfort Issues, Extra Fees Causing People To Fly Less
Often
Comfort issues and excessive fees are sore points for air
travelers, and are among the major reasons many are traveling less,
according to a new survey of almost 15,000 passengers by Consumer
Reports.
Eight of the 10 major airlines that Consumer Reports readers
rated received low scores for seat comfort. Several carriers also
got low marks for other quality-of-flight measures including
cabin-crew service, cleanliness, and in-flight
entertainment.
Consumer Reports airline ratings are based on responses from
14,861 readers who told the Consumer Reports National Research
Center about their experiences on 29,720 domestic round-trip
flights from January 2010 to January 2011. Airlines were scored
based on passengers' responses to questions regarding overall
satisfaction, check-in ease, cabin-crew service, cabin cleanliness,
baggage handling, seating comfort, and in-flight entertainment.
Consumer Reports also asked questions about charging additional
fees.
Some carriers did rise above the rest. Southwest Airlines and
JetBlue Airways topped list with relatively high scores for overall
satisfaction. Southwest was the only airline to receive top marks
for check-in ease and the cabin-crew service. Passengers also gave
Southwest high grades for cabin cleanliness and baggage handling.
(CR's survey was conducted before Southwest's well-publicized
problems this past April with cracks in several of its planes.)
JetBlue was the only airline to outscore Southwest for seating
comfort, possibly because it gives passengers more room than
they're accustomed to in this era of tightly packed planes. JetBlue
was also the lone carrier in Consumer Reports' ratings to earn top
scores for in-flight entertainment; its seatback TV screens offer
passengers 36 channels.
At the other end of the list, the bottom-ranked US Airways
occupies the same unenviable spot as it did in 2007, when Consumer
Reports last assessed airlines. In addition to its low overall
score, survey respondents gave it the worst marks of any airline
for cabin-crew service.
The proliferation of added fees at or after check-in by many
carriers further contributes to passengers' low opinion of today's
flying experience, and even to their decision of whether to fly at
all. Forty percent of survey respondents who said they're flying
less these days gave increased fees as the major reason—far
more than those who blamed flight delays, poor service, or any
other annoyance. "What we found is that paying fewer additional
fees generally translates into a passenger having higher overall
satisfaction with an airline," said Mark Kotkin, a director of
survey research at Consumer Reports.
As with overall satisfaction, airlines differ widely in how
likely they are to saddle travelers with extra fees. For example,
93 percent of the Southwest passengers surveyed had avoided all of
the fees CR asked about. Far fewer travelers were as lucky with
their experiences at Continental Airlines (57%), JetBlue Airways
(56%), Delta Airlines (56%), American Airlines (55%), United
Airlines (48%), US Airways (46%), Alaska Airlines (44%), Frontier
Airlines (43%) and AirTran Airways (33%). AirTran passengers were
also among those that frequently reported paying multiple
additional fees—43 percent of AirTran passengers reported
paying one fee, 21 percent paid two, and 3 percent, three or more
fees.