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The Department of Transportation (DOT) wanted to gauge how people are feeling toward airlines, so it conducted some surveys and has just released its latest Air Travel Consumer Report, which turns out to be mixed bag of good and bad. From January to June of this year, there were a lot more customer complaints—like we’re talking a lot more—but bags were mishandled less frequently than last year. Here’s a round-up of what’s most interesting:
Customers are unhappier. This report statistically confirms what we sadly knew already. Customers lodged 9,542 official complaints about air travel to the DOT, 20% more than at the same time in 2014.
Complaints about fares and customer service rose the highest. Complaints about “incorrect or incomplete information about fares, discount fare conditions and availability, overcharges, fare increases and level of fares in general” spiked from 296 to 870.
Spirit and Frontier Airlines were the worst offenders. And we’re not surprised! These two airlines had complaint rates at five times the industry average.
Apparently, Las Vegas to Cincinnati is tricky? Frontier flight 1120 was the flight delayed most often, at an average of a whopping 96 minutes late (don’t fly Frontier to Las Vegas — unless you really love hanging out at the airport).
Fewer mishandled bags! Hurrah. One nugget of hope is that the rate of mishandled bags is slightly down.
Airlines are making good bank (and prospering from low gas prices), but it’s easy to see that recent airline mergers are taking their toll on the industry. The best that customers can do is to go through the report and try to avoid the worst flights—and know how to seek compensation from airlines when they screw up.
