The 30th annual Airline Quality Rating results show an industry that had a performance decline for 2019. Results released today (Monday, May 4) reflect poorer industry performance in all four of the criteria tracked for calendar year 2019.
The AQR is a joint research project by co-researchers Dr. Dean Headley and Dr. Brent Bowen. This research originated at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas.
Findings show that all four AQR factors tracked – on-time arrivals, involuntary denied boardings, mishandled bags and customer complaints – declined from 2018 levels. While most of the factors (on-time arrivals, involuntary denied boardings and customer complaints) were only slightly worse than the prior year, the rate of mishandled baggage changed greatly for 2019. This large difference in mishandled baggage rate relates directly to a new measurement metric implemented for calendar year 2019. Starting with the January 2019 Air Travel Consumer Report, mishandled baggage is measured as the number of mishandled bags per number of checked bags. Previous years used the measurement of mishandled bags per number of enplaned passengers. The effect of the measurement change more than doubled the value for mishandled baggage used in the AQR calculations.
None of the nine airlines rated in 2018 and 2019 showed improvement in all four of the factors in the ratings. One airline, Frontier, had the same AQR score for 2019 as it had in 2018. Eight others posted a decline in overall performance scores for 2019. Those airlines showing a decline for 2019 were Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, Jet Blue, Southwest, Spirit and United. Allegiant is new to the AQR for 2019, and it posted the best AQR score of all 10 airlines rated for 2019.
An electronic version of the full report, with details on each airline, is available at https://airlinequalityrating.com
