With the summer holiday season approaching, fliers may want to check out a helpful monthly consumer report from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Tucked next to stats on flight delays and overall customer complaints is a section on mishandled luggage. The report covers passenger-reported cases of bags that were lost, stolen, damaged or delayed in transit.
In Depth: Airlines Least Likely To Lose Luggage
Between March 2008 and February 2009, passengers traveling with the 19 largest air carriers reported roughly five incidents of mishandled luggage per thousand passengers. Given that these airlines carried 585 million people, that's 150,000 passengers who lived through a luggage nightmare.
The airline that earned the best baggage rating may surprise travellers: low-fare AirTran Airways, headquartered in Orlando, Fla. For every 1,000 AirTran passengers, the carrier received only 2.59 reports, more than two fewer than the average and just under half the number reported by the airline in the middle of the rankings: United.
AirTran Airways spokesman Christopher White credited his carrier's success to automated luggage handling and to cooperation with security. Working efficiently with the Transportation Security Administration, he said, helped the company improve its industry-leading mishandled bag stats. "We have seamless hand-off from the airline to security and back to the airline before [baggage] goes to the side of the plane."
The worst of the 19 airlines: American Eagle Airlines. A regional operator contracted to American Airlines that serves the Eastern and Southern U.S., American Eagle carried 16 million passengers between March 2008 and February 2009, and averaged 9.13 reports per 1,000. American Eagle did not return requests for comment.
Discount airlines did disproportionately well, with JetBlue ranking fourth and Southwest, seventh. JetBlue spokesman Bryan Baldwin said that some of the advantage for low-cost carriers lay in route structure. "Every time you eliminate a touch point, you reduce the number of connecting customers." More direct flights means fewer opportunities for passengers--and luggage--to miss connections.
By contrast, regional operators under contract to major carriers performed poorly. Joining American Eagle in the bottom six were (from lowest to highest) Atlantic Southeast Airlines, Comair, Mesa Airlines, SkyWest Airlines and Pinnacle Airlines. These carriers offer connecting flights for the big airlines or maintain code-sharing agreements. Because their passengers are so frequently connecting with other flights at regional hubs, the likelihood of baggage mix-ups increases.
The major airlines had a better showing. Northwest earned third overall with 3.18 reports per 1,000 and Continental came in fifth with 3.61 reports. In the middle of the rankings, U.S. Airways took eighth with 4.17 per thousand, United Airlines scored tenth with an even five per thousand, and American, 11th, with 5.20. Delta came in at the thirteenth spot.
In the rest of the list, Hawaiian Airlines finished second (2.83), Frontier Airlines, sixth (3.89), Alaska Airlines, ninth (4.29), and Expressjet Airlines, 11th (5.56).
The data seems to reveal some good news for travelers: Airlines are mishandling fewer bags than they used to. In 2007, fliers reported between six and eight bag screw-ups per thousand. In 2008, that number fell to 4.88 per thousand.
But it may be that the numbers have come down because fewer people are flying in the economic downturn, and travelers are schlepping fewer bags. Since May 2008, most carriers have been charging for a second piece of checked luggage. Deterred by the fees, increasing numbers of fliers are leaving items at home or cramming them into carry-ons.
The December data alone show sharp improvement. Though the number of passengers only fell by 2.5 million from 2007 to 2008 (5.3 per cent) the number of baggage reports plummeted 27 per cent.
In Depth: Airlines Least Likely To Lose Luggage
