JD Power and Associates ranks North American airlines based on customer satisfaction. In the full service catagory Alaska Airlines took the award taking 5 stars (or dots) in all categories. “Alaska Airlines has made notable improvements in the courtesy and knowledge of its check-in staff from 2008,” said Dale Haines, senior director of the travel practice at J.D. Power and Associates. (Business week, June 30th) I do remember some concerns from ranking agencies from Alaska Airline in some specific but I guess they have improved.
Continental took second prize which is surprising. JD Power said that “Continental Airlines performs particularly well in the in-flight services and cost and fees measures.” Um doesn’t, Continental have a $15 check bag and $ 25 second check bag fee. So I don’t understand that part, they seem pretty average with checked baggage. Then for the second part their IFE (in-flight entertainment) they have been installing LiveTV on there fleet and again that is limited to a few aircraft. This makes me question JD power a bit.
In the Low Cost carrier category JetBlue ranked 1st. JetBlue has received awards by these agencies ranking airline. People really seem to like Jetblue IFE, which is oddly enough LiveTV (different link). Southwest who ranked second along withWestjet, ranked lowest in In-flight entertainment and aircraft experience. The In-flight entertainment thing I can understand but Aircraft experience? It a regular 737 on all the flight but then again JD power doesn’t exactly specialize in airline. One more interesting thing about Airline service rankings, Skytrax ranks Southwest as a 3 Star Carrier but scroll down to customer ratings they are way higher than 3-Stars. Just a thought.
