Last week the Consumer Travel Alliance completed an extensive survey of the readers of this blog and other blogs to determine which airlines ranked as our favorites. We also asked, “Why do you like your favorite airline?” Here are the results.
The real meat of the study comes in why passengers like particular airlines. We found that Southwest was ranked high because of price and customer service. American ranked highest in the love of their frequent flier program. United had a surprisingly high percentage who liked the economy plus seating. Continental was all about customer service. JetBlue was all about great seats and customer service. Here are charts of each of the airlines that reveal why we fly them.
Overall “Why we fly” results
Why we fly Southwest Airlines
Why we fly Continental Airlines
Obviously, Continental has a great customer service reputation
Why we fly American Airlines
American Airlines is making their money and keeping their customers because of their frequent flier program. From this study’s results even higher prices wouldn’t deter AA’s frequent fliers.
Why we fly Delta Air Lines
Delta’s strong suits are their frequent flier program and their destinations.
Why we fly JetBlue
JetBlue enjoys the highest ranking in seat comfort, with strong customer service and price satisfaction.
Why we fly United Airlines
United has loyal frequent fliers but next on the list is destinations followed by seat comfort (because of economy plus).
Why we fly Alaska Airlines
Customer service is Alaska’s strongest conponent followed by their frequent flier program.
Why we fly AirTran
AirTran keeps their customers happy by selling at the best prices. They also have good schedules and service.
Why we fly Virgin America
Virgin clearly is making their money by keeping customers happy and comfortable.
Why we fly USAirways
USAirways keeps their customers because of destinations, schedule and frequent flier program. Interestingly, they didn’t get one vote for comfortable seats in either coach or first class.
For Frontier and Spirit, the sample was not statistically valid.
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Admittedly we are probably dealing with an audience that skews to more frequent travelers, but this also underlines that in many cases, a frequent flier program probably is the best asset the ‘legacy’ airlines have.
Yes, the frequent flyer programs are an important asset for those airlines, which raises two questions: 1) Why are the almost constantly devaluing those programs with the changes they make? I grant that occasionally there is a change that is positive for the traveler, but usually the changes cut into their value. 2) Why don’t the discount airlines try harder to develop attractive plans? Their rapid expiration of benefits and limited destination options (yes, they often fly mostly or exclusively to domestic destinations, but why don’t they create more linkups with international carriers?) make them uncompetitive in that arena, which for some, is obviously a factor in flight decisions.
I did choose Southwest as my favorite airline, but, truth is the real reason it’s my favorite airline is their cancellation and change policies. If I need to cancel or change a flight there is no $100+ penalty. We have frequent flyer miles with American and United and we do fly them for international trips and some trips in the US – but if my choice is Southwest or any other carrier where Southwest flies non-stop I will fly Southwest.
In my opinion the legacy carriers are shooting themselves in the foot by all their ridiculous fees – if one would adopt Southwest’s policy they would have more business than they could handle…
I am not a frequent flyer so a frequent flyer program does not really interest me. Therefore I would not choose neither American nor United. United is on my low low list of airlines. As much as possible I try to avoid United because of their terrible service and attitude of flight attendants. American is a little bit better but service and attitude towards passengers leave a lot to be desired compared to Continental or Delta. I usually fly long international flights and I must say I am really impressed with service and attitude of Continental employees and also by service then it is Delta that has a really nice customer service.
What happened to Hawaiian Airlines? I think they were rated #1 for on time and customer service.
Interesting that the only legacy airline that rated well for service is Continental and they are the only one that still serves meals in coach. The LCC’s scored well for service but part of that is that we have reduced expections for service so it’s easier for LCC’s to meet our expecations.
From LAX Southwest is by far the worst carrier. Long lines for security and if you ever need to check a bag you’ll more than double your wait time. I also have never found them to bet that much less expensive – if at all. I’ll fly any of the legacy airlines over Southwest.
I wonder how many people were surveyed?
Hawaiian has horrible change/cancellation policies, seating is crowded and uncomfortable, you are charged for every bag, and their website is terribly developed (you can’t make changes online – and at the moment it does not load).
Their competitive advantages are their pricing and friendly flight crews.
They need to find more progressive leadership that doesn’t feel the need to copy the industry heavyweights whose business models don’t match Hawaiian’s niche.
They have a lot of work to do in order to re-strengthen their brand – quite simply, their management their aloha focus (and I’m not talking about the former airline).
I’m a frequent business traveler. At one point I was flying AA exclusively and had been a Platinum member of their AAdvantage program for several years.
AA’s customer service tanked in the years following 9/11 and they continually blamed their issues on the attacks. I finally quit flying them regularly and jumped between Continental and Southwest and occasionally on AA if it was the best option. But the last couple of trips were outright disasters, all customer service related. So now I will never step foot on another American flight unless it is absolutely the only option. I now almost always fly Southwest. Best on-time, best FF program, and by far the best Customer Service! Flight times aren’t always convenient and they don’t always fly where I need to go, but I’ll sacrifice not to have to fly American Airlines!
I am passionate about SWA! They simply treat their customers the best! They do so many little things that make a big difference! I have met Herb Kelleher several times on flights, and you see why his employees treat you the way they treat you — because he treats his employees so well! It is a very simple equation: treat your people right — they will treat your customers right — your customers will treat your bottom line right!
SWA or LUV employees I have dealth with do two things most airlines do not: a) listen to customers, b) try to help. It’s that simple. When people are frustrated or just need assistance, just listening and approaching things with a ‘let me see what we can do’ approach works wonders. Even if they can’t ultimately help, they’ve actually tried to do something. Other airline employees are typically like automated voicemail systems: they approach everything with a flowchart mentality that makes people feel like bits vs human beings. Until customers are mostly robots with no capacity to feel, many airlines should consider treating their customers like people.
I’d be interested to know what random sampling procedures were in place throughout this survey. I would say that I expected Southwest and Continental to earn high marks… but American and Delta? As a previous poster said, this study is highly skewed towards frequent fliers or business travelers.
Why are people ranking the legacy frequent flier programs so important? NOT because they luv them, but because they are historically tied up in them or they wouldn’t every fly them at all. I think maybe ambiguity was an issue here….they may not like the legacies or their FF programs, but IF they have to say what they like, it’s the fact that they have miles to use:) waddythink?
I agree with Susan. The only reason I every fly AA now is that I have miles built up on their frequent flier program and earn miles with my current credit card. I use those miles to fly when I need to go somewhere that Southwest doesn’t fly.
I agree with Debi, the lack of change/cancellation fees at Southwest is fantastic. I accidentally booked LAX to OAK instead of OAK to LAX and didn’t realize the mistake until a week later. I called customer service and the rep just gave me a cute, southern giggle and fixed it with no fee. I’m sure I would’ve been paying the piper at a legacy carrier.
However, Southwest is not my favorite carrier. Their lack of assigned seating creates a hectic boarding environment. This just adds to the stress of travel. I prefer having my guaranteed seat over their free-for-all seating format.
I’ll take Virgin America and JetBlue over S’West at this point.
I take WN as little as possible and prefer AA and CO over the other legacy carriers, mostly because of the service. I find that the service of the airline employees is equal to the attitude of the customer… WN, CO or AA, they all are the same.
I am in the minority for sure when I say I like the alacarte fees. If I’m flying to Dallas and have no bags, I enjoy the less expensive ticket price and pleasent service from AA. WN includes their costs for the checked bag (ie. tugs and airport infrastructure) in thir ticket price whether I use it or not… I just want the burger, so why should I pay for the fries and drink of a happy meal ? Eventually flyers will figure this out.
VS and B6 are by far the most comfortable coach seats.