Passenger jets line up for takeoff at San Francisco International Airport
The latest Airline Quality Rating not only gives Americans a few more reasons to gripe their way through the airport, it also gives airline management reason to fear congressional intervention. From ticketing to baggage claim, the nation's airlines are failing their customers — and Congress, having given the industry a series of warnings to clean up its act, looks poised to take action.
The annual Airline Quality Rating report, released Monday and co-authored by professors at the University of Nebraska and Wichita State University, is a ringing indictment of almost every major airline. While there were a few pleasant surprises, including Alaska, Southwest and Delta Airlines' relatively strong showings, for the most part the picture is pretty dismal. "The airlines promised two years ago to clean things up, and they just haven't," says Richard Gritta, professor of finance at the Pamplin School of Business at the University of Portland in Oregon.
Rating almost every aspect of air travel, from on-time arrivals to mishandled baggage to customer complaints, the AQR study delivers negative numbers on nearly every count, for almost every airline. Now, experts say, there could be a very steep price to pay. "Any congressional action would get very dicey very quickly for the airlines," says Gritta, who writes frequently about the airline industry. "I normally don't advocate passing laws to get things done, but the airlines have had a chance to clean things up, and they've failed. And now, after years of relative apathy, congressional leaders are very interested in passing reforms — because their constituents are picking up the phones and complaining in record numbers," he says.
That's bad news for the brass at the major airlines, many of which face the looming threat of strikes as the busy summer travel season draws near. American, Delta, TWA and Northwest are all embroiled in serious labor disputes, and, as Gritta points out, a study like this one will only add fuel to labor's fire. "I suspect these new numbers will really bring the situation home to management: We've got Congress pushing controls and we've got the public ticked off. If we push the unions, things could blow up," Gritta says.
But even with this kind of ammunition, adds Gritta, the unions, many of which are demanding large pay and benefit packages, shouldn't assume they're immune from public ire. "The unions know they've got the management in a very tough place. But the unions could risk a certain backlash from the public — if they start staging strikes, the public could say, 'Hey, these unions are keeping us from our vacations.'" If all else fails, fed-up airline customers should hope for an election-year meltdown on the tarmac: Even the most incensed public interest group would pale, of course, in comparison to any one senator kept from even one minute of his flesh-pressing rounds by a galling airline delay.