Overall Air Service Complaints Fall, According to DOT Air Travel Consumer Report

Contact DOT 102-01 Bill Mosley 202-366-5571

Thursday, October 4, 2001 -- The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) today issued its monthly Air Travel Consumer Report, with the department’s official 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 for August 2001.

The report shows that while overall air service complaints dropped in August, complaints about the treatment of disabled passengers increased.

Complaints About Airlines Service

Consumers registered 1,880 complaints about airline service with DOT in August, a 2.4 percent decrease from the 1,927 complaints filed in July and 35.4 percent below the 2,911 filed in August 2000.

In addition, this report also contains a tabulation of complaints filed with DOT in August against specific airlines regarding the treatment of passengers with disabilities. Consumers filed a total of 81 disability-related complaints in August, slightly more than double the 40 complaints filed in July and 93 percent more than the 42 filed in August 2000.

Flight Delays

According to the information filed with BTS, the 12 carriers reporting on-time data posted a 76.2 percent on-time arrival record in August, a decline from July’s rate of 78.1 but better than August 2000’s 70.0.

Aloha Airlines had the best on-time arrival rate in August at 84.5 percent, followed by Trans World Airlines at 83.7 and Southwest Airlines at 81.7. Alaska Airlines had the lowest percentage of on-time flights at 64.7, with America West Airlines ranked eleventh at 70.6 and United Airlines tenth at 71.1.

The report includes a list of regularly scheduled flights that arrived late at least 80 percent of the time. In August, the most-delayed flight was Delta Air Lines flight 1993 from New York JFK to Atlanta, late 93.55 percent of the time. The next four most frequently delayed flights were Delta flight 96 from Atlanta to New York JFK, late 90.32 percent of the time; America West 155 from Phoenix to St. Louis, late 90.0 percent of the time; Alaska 364 from Spokane, WA, to Seattle, late 87.1 percent of the time; and Southwest 1201 from Las Vegas to Phoenix, also late 87.1 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 data on the number of domestic flights canceled by the 12 reporting carriers. In August, the carriers canceled 2.4 percent of their scheduled domestic flights, more than the 2.1 percent canceled in July but fewer than the 3.1 percent canceled in August 2000. American Eagle Airlines had the highest percentage of canceled flights with 5.4 percent, followed by American Airlines with 3.3 percent and Delta with 2.9 percent. Southwest had the lowest rate of canceled flights at 0.8 percent, with Aloha ranked second-best at 1.2 percent and Trans World third-best at 1.4.

Mishandled Baggage

The 11 largest U.S. carriers posted a mishandled baggage rate of 4.38 reports per 1,000 passengers in August, better than both July’s rate of 4.48 and the 5.35 rate posted in August 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 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.