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Flight Delays, Mishandled Baggage, Complaints Increase in March, but Remain Well Below 2001 Levels
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DOT 46-02 Bill Mosley
202-366-5571
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Monday, May 6, 2002 -- Flight delays, reports of mishandled baggage and complaints about airline service increased between February and March but still remained well below totals for comparable periods last year, as air traffic continued to recover from Sept. 11's terrorist
attacks, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).
DOT's monthly Air Travel Consumer Report, which was released today, also includes for
the first time a summary of complaints from passengers alleging discrimination
by airlines due to factors such as race, religion, national origin or sex. The new category was created due to increasing numbers of complaints of discrimination reported since Sept. 11. The department received 35
discrimination complaints in March and 95 for the first three months of this
year, compared to 15 in March 2001 and 36 for the first quarter of 2001. This category does not include complaints
about discrimination due to disability, for which there is already a separate
category in the report.
The report also includes airline reports of involuntary denied boarding, or bumping, for the first quarter of 2002.
Flight Delays
According
to information filed with the department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics
(BTS), the 10 carriers reporting on-time performance posted a 78.6 percent
on-time record in March, not as good as February's rate of 84.7 but better than
March 2001's 75.2 percent mark.
Continental Airlines had the best on-time arrival rate in March at 84.8
percent, followed by America West Airlines in second place, also at 84.8 but a
small fraction of a percent behind Continental, and United Airlines third at
80.8. Northwest Airlines had the lowest
percentage of on-time flights, ranked tenth at 70.7, with Alaska Airlines
ranked ninth at 73.3 and American Eagle Airlines eighth at 76.2. For the first three months of this year,
the carriers posted an overall on-time arrival rate of 81.3 percent, well above
the 75.2 percent mark for the first quarter of 2001.
The report contains a list of
regularly scheduled flights that were late at least 80 percent of the time. In
March, the most frequently delayed flights were Northwest flight 1788 from
Detroit to Philadelphia, late 96.77 percent of the time; Northwest flight 329
from Detroit to Memphis, TN, late 93.55 percent; Northwest flight 765 from
Detroit to Minneapolis-St. Paul, late 90.32 percent; Southwest Airlines flight
1947 from Tampa, FL, to Phoenix, also late 90.32 percent; and Southwest flight
1297 from Albuquerque, NM, to Phoenix, late 88.46 percent of the time.
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
BTS data on the number of domestic flights canceled by the reporting
carriers. In March, the carriers
canceled 1.3 percent of their scheduled domestic flights, higher than
February's rate of 1.1 percent but well below the 3.4 percent rate of March
2001. American Eagle Airlines had the
highest percentage of canceled flights in March at 3.9, followed by Alaska
Airlines at 2.9 and Northwest at 2.0.
Continental had the lowest percentage of cancellations at 0.2 percent,
followed by Southwest at 0.7 and United at 0.8.
Mishandled Baggage
The 10 largest
U.S. carriers posted a mishandled baggage rate of 4.52 reports per 1,000
passengers in March, not as good as February's mark of 3.85 but better than
March 2001's 5.03 for the same 10 carriers.
For the first three months this year, the 10 carriers recorded a
mishandled baggage rate of 4.37, much better than the 5.28 mark for the first
quarter of 2001.
Bumping
The report also
includes airline reports of involuntary denied boarding, or bumping, for the
first quarter of 2002. The 10 largest
U.S. carriers recorded a bumping rate of .80 per 10,000 passengers for the
quarter, slightly higher for the same 10 carriers than the 0.76 rate for the
first quarter of 2001.
Complaints About Airline Service
The department
received 1,020 complaints about airline service in March, a 5.7 increase over
the 965 complaints received in February but 41.9 percent fewer than the 1,756
complaints recorded in March 2001. For
the first three months of this year, the department received 3,047 complaints, 41.8
percent less than the 5,233 received during the first quarter of 2001.
Complaints About Treatment of Disabled Passengers
The report also
contains a tabulation of complaints filed with DOT in March against specific
airlines regarding the treatment of passengers with disabilities. The department received a total of 55
disability-related complaints in March, an increase of 7.8 percent over the 51
complaints received in February and 5.8 percent higher than the 52 complaints
received in March 2001. For the first
three months of this year, consumers filed 131 disability-related complaints,
12.1 percent less than the 149 received during the first quarter of 2001.
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
reminded 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.
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