U.S. Airline Rankings for 2020: Who Scored Highest and Lowest?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here's your Money Briefing for Thursday, January 28th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. Airline travel in the U.S. fell about 60% last year due to the pandemic. Still, 324 million passengers flew the friendly skies. So did the airlines run any better with fewer seats filled and much of their fleets grounded? The Wall Street Journal Middle Seats scorecard of the best and worst airlines of 2020 has the answer.
It was a year when you could sort of hit the reset button. Everything changed.
So which airline came out on top? And what things did passengers complain about the most?
Which airlines topped The Wall Street Journal's 2020 performance survey?
Our Middle Sea columnist Scott McCartney will be here to run through everything from on-time departures to baggage handling problems. That's after the break.
Air travel was a lot less busy in 2020, but airlines were still running, transporting millions of people who braved the pandemic. To find out how well airlines handled the challenge, let's check in with our Middle Sea columnist, Scott McCartney. He's got the results of our latest airline performance survey. Scott, thanks for being with us.
Good to be with you, JR.
All right, Scott, we'll dig into the numbers behind the rankings in a moment, but let's not keep people waiting. In this year, like no other for the airline industry, which carriers came out on top and who didn't fare as well?
You know, it's quite interesting. It was a year when you could sort of hit the reset button. Everything changed in terms of operations. There wasn't the congestion that we've seen in past years at all. But what I thought was really interesting was who came out on top was sort of the better airlines performed really well. And the airlines that haven't performed as well in the past still didn't perform as well. So Southwest ended up number one. It actually edged out Delta.
How did the pandemic change airline operations and create a 'reset' year?
Delta had been great. the top of our survey for the past three years. But Southwest had been right behind them and this year overtook them. And at the bottom was American. And it was the second year in a row for American. American has consistently performed poorly in terms of operational reliability compared to other airlines.
All right, let's look at how the companies earned those rankings. The pandemic kept thousands of flights grounded and people stuck at home last year. Yet customer complaints against the airlines were considerably higher than the year prior. What were people complaining about?
It was almost all refunds, tickets, just problems with vouchers, anything to do with getting your money back, basically. And the complaints, people had really good reason to complain because there were several airlines that weren't following the rules. and weren't giving people refunds when they were entitled to refunds. The two huge complaint drivers in this were United and Frontier. And they had changed their rules along the way multiple times and really angered a lot of customers. United has since said they made mistakes, and now they realize they would do it differently. But it was a really tough year, and overall complaints were up more than 500%.
Yeah, when you're dealing with people's money, that can definitely raise their concern. Which airlines did fairly well in that department?
Southwest was number one in the lowest rate of complaints filed with the Department of Transportation. Southwest, you know, in particular, has a very generous refund policy. You can change without a change fee. You can use your credit. You can Use the full credit, the full value of the credit, which you can't do at United, for example. Delta was number two. You know, they both have consistently treated customers well, and so their rates of complaints are much lower.
Okay. Now, what about baggage? Did the near shutdown of air travel make it easier for airlines to keep track of passengers' bags? And who did well in that area?
Yeah, the rate of mishandled baggage, which the Department of Transportation tracks, it was lower. There was improvement there. But what was interesting to me was the bags still got messed up.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:05–0:39
2
Which airlines topped The Wall Street Journal's 2020 performance survey?
0:39–1:51
3
How did the pandemic change airline operations and create a 'reset' year?
1:51–7:02
4
Why did Southwest overtake Delta to become number one in 2020?
7:02–9:47
5
What drove the surge in customer complaints and which airlines were responsible?
9:47–10:36
6
How did airlines compare on refunds and customer service during cancellations?
10:36–12:18
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from WSJ Your Money Briefing
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