Customer satisfaction with US airlines drops to lowest level since 2001

26 May, 2008: In the first quarter of 2008, customer satisfaction with airlines in the United States fell to its lowest level since 2001.

An annual survey, released by the University of Michigan, the United States, on May 20, 2008, shows that customers are giving US airlines “the worst grades since 2001, with the airline industry’s overall scores dropping for the third straight year.”

The result s of the survey come at a time when airlines across the United States keep charging more and more for tickets and services, the website dallasnews.com has reported.

In the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, United Airlines and US Airways Group Incorporated came last-but-one and last, respectively. The score of US Airways fell to 54 from 61 a year ago, and that of United Airlines stood at 56.

Continental Airlines Incorporated, based in Houston, Texas, and the fourth-largest airline in the United States based on revenue passenger miles, and US Airways Group Incorporated reported the biggest drop from 2007 – with both airlines suffering double-digit percentage declines.

According to the survey, Southwest Airlines Company, the low-cost airline based in Dallas, Texas, led the airline industry in passenger satisfaction for the 15th year in a row.

Southwest Airlines registered an index of 79 – up from 76 in 2007.

There came a big drop in customer satisfaction after Southwest Airlines – with AMR Corporation’s American Airlines and Continental Airlines scoring 62, Delta Air Lines Incorporated scoring 60, and Northwest Airlines Corporation sliding to 57 from 61 in 2007.

The website dallasnews.com quoted Claes Fornell, business professor at the University of Michigan and director of the research center that compiled the data, as commenting on the findings: “While unhappiness with airlines is nothing new, the survey of 2008 produced really dismal numbers. There is no other industry anywhere that has so many basic mishaps in terms of not delivering the basics. They are supposed to deliver passengers with their luggage to a particular destination within a certain timeframe, and they frequently fail to do that.”

On the scores worsening significantly, Claes Fornell said managements of airlines have to be blamed, even while taking into account some factors beyond their control such as high costs of jet fuel and congested airports.

“Passengers,” Fornell continued, “also are not blameless. They buy primarily on price, and very little else. The result of that is very low service and a business model of cost-cutting that really leaves no one happy, certainly not the businesses, the shareholders or the flying public.”

About 26,000 people took part in the survey conducted by the University of Michigan in the first quarter of 2008. The participants rated their level of satisfaction as customers of companies in a variety of industries, including airlines.

For the survey, the University of Michigan created an American Customer Satisfaction Index on a scale of 1 to 100, based on the responses to questions about overall satisfaction, intention to be a repeat customer and perception of quality, value and expectations.

It was found that the index for the airline industry in the United States as a whole fell to 62 from 63 in 2007 – a little above its historical low of 61 in 2001.