DOT Releases Monthly Air Travel Consumer Report

Contact DOT 116-01 Bill Mosley 202-366-5571

Tuesday, November 6, 2001 -- The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) today issued its monthly Air Travel Consumer Report, featuring data from its Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) about airline on-time arrivals, in addition to information about mishandled baggage and consumer disability and service complaints.

The flight delay and mishandled baggage data in the report cover the period Sept. 1-10 only. Flight delay data for the rest of the month were significantly and adversely affected by the events of Sept. 11, during which all airline operations were canceled for several days under government order, and carriers required several additional days to resume scheduled operations. In addition, under government order carriers were unable to conduct any operations at Washington Reagan National Airport were canceled from Sept. 11 through Oct. 4 when service resumed on a limited basis. Systemwide day-by-day flight delay information for the entire month of September is available at the BTS website at www.bts.gov. The report includes consumer complaint data for the full month of September.

Flight Delays

According to the information filed with BTS, the 12 carriers reporting on-time data posted an 81.5 percent on-time arrival record for Sept. 1-10, better than both the 76.2 rate for the full month of August and September 2000's rate of 78.1, which also covered the full month.

Aloha Airlines had the best on-time arrival rate at 89.7 percent, followed by Southwest Airlines at 86.8 and Trans World Airlines at 86.2. Continental Airlines had the lowest percentage of on-time flights at 74.2, with American Eagle Airlines ranked eleventh at 77.0 and United Airlines tenth at 77.7.

The report contains a note reminding consumers that flight delays can be caused by a variety of factors. The data on which this report is based do not identify the causes, only the occurrence, of flight delays.

These official on-time data are distinct from the data compiled by DOT's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which records delays while aircraft are under control of the air traffic control system (i.e., from actual gate pushback time to actual gate arrival time). FAA data cover some of the delays caused by weather and volume, for example, but do not cover delays at the gate such as those caused by aircraft mechanical problems, crew unavailability or many weather conditions affecting flights before they depart. The FAA data are useful for managing the air traffic control system but are not designed to measure airline passenger delays.

Flight Cancellations

The consumer report also includes data on the number of domestic flights canceled by the 12 reporting carriers. During the period Sept. 1-10, the carriers canceled 2.1 percent of their scheduled domestic flights, better than both the 2.4 percent cancellation rate for the full month of August and the 2.2 percent rate for the full month of September 2000. American Eagle had the highest percentage of canceled flights with 5.3 percent, followed by American Airlines with 3.0 percent and Aloha with 2.8 percent. Southwest had the lowest rate of canceled flights at 0.8 percent, with Trans World ranked second-best at 1.0 percent and America West third-best at 1.5 percent.

Mishandled Baggage

The 11 largest U.S. carriers posted a mishandled baggage rate of 3.89 reports per 1,000 passengers during the period Sept. 1-10, better than both the rate of 4.38 for the full month of August and the rate of 4.55 for the full month of September 2000. For the first nine months of this year, the carriers posted a mishandled baggage rate of 4.58, an improvement over the 5.13 rate for the first nine months of 2000.

Complaints About Airline Service

Consumers registered 1,043 complaints about airline service with DOT during the month of September, a 44.5 percent decrease from the 1,880 complaints filed in August and 34.3 percent below the 1,587 filed in September 2000. The number of complaints per 100,000 passengers also decreased, dropping from 2.70 in September 2000 to 2.44 in September 2001. September's complaint total was the lowest since February 1999, when consumers filed 1,018 complaints with the department. For the first nine months of this year, consumers filed a total of 14,631 complaints, 23.5 percent fewer than the 19,114 complaints filed during January-September 2000.

In addition, this report also contains a tabulation of complaints filed with DOT in September against specific airlines regarding the treatment of passengers with disabilities. Consumers filed a total of 34 disability-related complaints in September, 58 percent fewer than the 81 filed in August and 27.7 percent below the 47 registered in September 2000. For the first nine months of this year, consumers filed 447 disability complaints, 13.9 percent fewer than the 519 filed during January-September 2000.

Consumers may file their complaints in writing with the Aviation Consumer Protection Division, U.S. Department of Transportation, C-75, 400 7th St., S.W., Room 4107, Washington, D.C. 20590, by e-mail at airconsumer@ost.dot.gov, by voice mail at (202) 366-2220 or by TTY at (202) 366-0511.

The department reminds consumers who want on-time performance data for specific flights to call their airline ticket offices or their travel agents. This information is available on the computerized reservation systems used by these agents. Detailed flight delay information is also available on the BTS site on the World Wide Web at http://www.bts.gov.

The Air Travel Consumer Report can be found on DOT's World Wide Web site at http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer. It is available in "pdf" and Microsoft Word format.