Budget airlines best performers

Budget airlines generally provided better service in 2003 than traditional airlines, an annual study of aviation quality finds.

Newer, cheaper carriers such as JetBlue and Southwest were more likely to arrive on time, according to the report released today. They also were less likely to mishandle baggage, bump passengers or generate complaints than their network competitors.

Dean Headley, a co-author of the study and associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University, said most of the low-cost carriers were above the industry average on four performance indicators last year. Most of the traditional airlines were below the industry average, he said.

“You can deliver good service at a decent price, or you’d better figure out how to do it or you won’t be around,” Mr. Headley said.

JetBlue had the second-best on-time performance, arriving punctually 86 percent of the time. JetBlue’s passengers also filed fewer complaints — 0.31 per 100,000 — to the Transportation Department than all other airlines but Southwest.

Southwest, with 0.14 complaints per 100,000 customers, consistently generates the lowest complaint rate in the industry, the report said.

Continental and Northwest were tied for most complaints, 0.95 per 100,000 customers.

The report rated the 14 U.S. airlines that carried at least 1 percent of the 587 million passengers who flew last year. Four low-cost carriers — AirTran, ATA, Atlantic Southeast and JetBlue — met that threshold for the first time in 2003.

Mr. Headley said low-cost airlines comprised 4 percent of the market when he began the study in 1991. Now they carry one-quarter of all passengers; he expects them to transport four in 10 by 2006.

“The airline industry is in a major reorientation mode,” Mr. Headley said. “That ball’s rolling down hill and I’m not sure how many of the legacy carriers are going to be able to get out of the way.”

Alan Bender, an aviation professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., said the traditional airlines still will offer something that the low-cost carriers don’t: connecting flights to any commercial airport on the planet, first-class service and frequent-flier miles.

“Frequent-flier programs are completely addictive among Americans,” Mr. Bender said. “Business travelers will avoid low-cost carriers because they’re not going to get miles that will take them to Hawaii.”

The report was co-authored by Brent Bowen, director of the University of Nebraska’s aviation institute, and based on Transportation Department statistics.