Airlines Improving Flying Experience, Study Shows

(RTTNews) - Baggage that are lost, damaged or mishandled during a flight journey can create a lot of headache for passengers. That may be one of the major complaints against airlines around the globe too.

A recent study report by Dean Headley of Wichita State University and Brent Bowen of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University shows that there has been a tremendous decline in complaints on mishandled baggage.

Based on the monthly Air Travel Consumer Report of the Federal Transportation Department, the study recorded only 2.7 mishandled bags per thousand passengers in 2016, a decline from 3.24 per thousand passengers a year ago. Virgin America scored the best results of 1.03 per thousand passenger, while ExpressJet's mishandled baggage rate was 4.31 per thousand passengers.

The study closely examined four areas of operations of 12 airlines, and all were better than the previous year. The airlines involved in the study were Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit, United and Virgin America.

When airlines sell more seats than its capacity, there could be denial of boarding or bumping. In 2016, bumping rates were only 0.62 per thousand passengers, compared to 0.76 in 2015.

Customer complaint was a major focus of the study. It was found that there was a slight decrease in complaints to 1.52 per hundred thousand passengers, from 1.90 in the prior year. There were only 0.47 customer complaints per hundred thousand passengers for Southwest, while Spirit was the worst with 6.74 complaints.

On-time performance of airlines improved by one percent to 81.4 in 2016. Hawaiian recorded 91 percent on-time performance, while Spirit could achieve only 74 percent.