DOT 38-03
Monday, May 5, 2003
Contact: Bill Mosley
Tel.: (202) 366-5571
Consumer Complaints About Airline Service Drop
in First Quarter of 2003
Consumers filed far
fewer complaints with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) in the first
quarter of 2003 than during the first three months of last year, according to
the department’s monthly Air Travel Consumer Report which was issued today.
During the first
three months of this year, the department received 1,673 air service complaints
from consumers, a drop of 45 percent from the 3,044 complaints filed during the
first quarter of 2002. Consumers
filed 539 complaints in March, 47.1 percent fewer than the total of 1,019 filed
in March 2002 but 22.5 percent more than the 440 tallied in February 2003.
The drop in
complaints may be due in part to reductions in air traffic that have led to
fewer flight delays, contributing to better on-time records and fewer passenger
complaints about flight problems. In
addition, monthly meetings between DOT’s Aviation Consumer Protection Division
and representatives of major airlines have been focused on improving service to
customers.
In addition to
consumer complaint information, the report also includes data about flight
delays, cancellations and mishandled baggage for March and the first quarter of
2003, and involuntary denied boarding, or bumping, data for the first quarter of
this year.
Flight Delays
According to
information filed with the department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics
(BTS), the 17 carriers reporting on-time performance posted an 82.6
percent on-time record in March, better than February’s 76.6 rate.
Skywest Airlines had the best on-time arrival rate in March at 89.2
percent, followed by American Airlines in second place at 86.9 and Southwest
Airlines third at 86.0. Atlantic Southeast Airlines had the lowest percentage of
on-time flights at 71.5, with Atlantic Coast Airlines ranked 16th at
71.8 percent and ATA Airlines (formerly American Trans Air) 15th at
74.7 percent. For the first three
months of this year, the carriers posted an overall on-time arrival rate of 81.0
percent.
The report contains a list of regularly scheduled flights
that were late at least 80 percent of the time. In March, three flights were on
this list, all operated by Atlantic Southeast:
flight 4871 from Atlanta to Panama City, FL, late 93.55 percent of the
time; flight 4847 from Key West, FL, to Atlanta, late 80.65 percent; and flight
4551 from New York JFK to Atlanta, also late 80.65 percent.
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. The
carriers that report the delay numbers will be required, beginning in June, to
report the causes of delays to BTS. The
causal numbers will be available in the August report.
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 1.7 percent of their
scheduled domestic flights, much better than February’s 4.0 percent
cancellation rate. Atlantic Coast
had the highest percentage of canceled flights in March at 4.9, followed by
Atlantic Southeast at 3.1 and United Airlines at 3.0.
JetBlue Airways had the lowest percentage of cancellations at 0.2. Continental Airlines had the next-lowest percentage of
cancellations at 0.8, followed by AirTran Airways, also at 0.8 percent but a
fraction of a percentage higher than Continental.
Mishandled Baggage
The 17 U.S. carriers reporting
flight delays and mishandled baggage data posted a mishandled baggage rate of
4.37 reports per 1,000 passengers in March, much better than February’s 4.96
rate. For the first three months of
this year, the 17 carriers recorded a mishandled baggage rate of 4.76 reports
per 1,000 passengers.
Bumping
The report also includes airline
reports of involuntary denied boarding, or bumping, for the first quarter of
2003. The 14 U.S. carriers who
report on-time and mishandled baggage data who are also required to report their
bumping records posted a bumping rate of .90 per 10,000 passengers for the
quarter.
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 24 disability-related complaints in
March, a decrease of 56.4 percent from the 55 complaints filed in March 2002,
although slightly more than the 22 received in February 2003.
For the first three months of this year, consumers filed 77
disability-related complaints, 41.2 percent less than the 131 received during
the first quarter of 2002.
Complaints
About Discrimination
In March, the
department received three complaints alleging discrimination by airlines due to
factors other than disability – such as race, religion, national origin or sex
– a 91.2 percent drop from the total of 34 recorded in March 2002 and half as
many as the total of six registered
in February 2003.
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://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov. It is available in “pdf” and Microsoft Word format.
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