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.

FMI: www.ConsumerReports.org