Just in time for the busy summer travel season, there's good news today for airline passengers: On-time performance is up, and baggage mishandling is down.
The nation’s largest airlines reported an on-time arrival rate of 86.3 percent in April. That's a 10.8 percentage point improvement from the same month last year and a 4.1 percentage point improvement from the previous month.
Airlines also logged a mishandled baggage rate of 2.63 reports for every 1,000 passengers. That's down from the April 2011 and March 2012. In fact, it's the lowest rate for any month since carriers first began reporting this data, nearly 25 years ago, in September 1987.
Even better, airlines reported no tarmac delays of more than three hours on domestic or international flights in April.
I have said repeatedly that the Obama Administration believes consumers have the right to be treated fairly when they fly. And here at DOT, our Aviation Consumer Protection and Enforcement office has been working hard to help air travelers get the respectful treatment they deserve.
I'm proud of the work we've done; I'm happy to see this encouraging April airline report; and I wish everyone safe travels this summer.
The numbers do suggest significant improvements in people preferring to fly more and airport service doing better. I guess this will promote more people to fly the skies when they travel again.
Posted by: Ronald @ Airline Consolidator | August 27, 2012 at 04:16 PM