Money: Low Fare, High Quality

Just because an airline doesn't have a first-class section doesn't mean it isn't first-rate. In the 14th annual Airline Quality Rating study, JetBlue and two other budget carriers, Southwest and America West, took three of the four top slots. Fourteen airlines were evaluated on services like on-time arrivals, based on data from the U.S. Department of Transportation. "In the late '90s, the big airlines said to their customers, 'You have to be a premier traveler or we're not going to care about you much,'" says Wichita State marketing professor Dean Headley, who co-authored this year's report with Brent Bowen of the...

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