Atlantic Southeast Airlines, American Eagle Fair Poorly

In an annual scoring of the quality of airline performance, two regional carriers are now carrying enough passengers to be graded with the nation's 12 largest airlines. However, it would appear that American Eagle and Atlantic Southeast Airlines need to work on customer service if they want to play in the same league as the big boys.

Researchers at University of Nebraska and Wichita State University since 1991 have transformed the monthly customer service performance reports that the airlines file with the U.S. Department of Transportation into a mathematical score - the Airline Quality Rating. Every airline carrying more than 1 percent of the U.S. domestic passenger volume in 2003 made the 2004 listing. For the 2004 listing, 14 airlines met the traffic threshold compared to 10 in the two previous years. Factors on the monthly report that contribute to the rating system include on-time performance, mishandled baggage, customer complaints and denied boardings.

American Eagle was ranked No. 13. The regional carrier unit of American Airlines [AMR], American Eagle was the second most improved airline from the 2003 listing. The carrier has been on listing for three years.

In its first year in the survey, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, a unit of Delta Air Lines [DAL], scored last.

Neither parent airline scored high in the survey. American was ranked No. 11 and Delta was ranked No. 12.

The low-cost airlines dominated the top ranks of the 2004 survey. JetBlue [JBLU] was ranked No. 1 in its first year in the survey. Alaska Air [ALK] came in second, Southwest Airlines [LUV] was third, America West [AWA] was fourth. US Airways [UAIR] was the highest ranked network carrier at No. 5 - it had been ranked No. 1 in the previous survey.

"Generally the low-fare carriers performed better than the industry combined scores, while the legacy carriers were in the lower end of that scale and below the industry scores," said Dean Headley, a marketing professor at Wichita and co-director of the survey. "I believe that with the price combination in there, the low-fare carriers are definitely solid in their ability to attract customers and passengers, and it shows in the market share gains that they're making."

Overall, American Eagle was the second most improved airline last year. While its rate of denied boardings was among the best in the industry - 0.38 denials per 10,000 passengers - the rate was higher than last year's 0.19. JetBlue topped this category with no denied boardings. American Eagle showed improvements in the rate of customer complaints - 0.51 complaints per 100,000 passengers versus 0.60 complaints in 2002. The carrier also improved on its mishandled baggage score - it had 8.42 complaints per 1,000 passengers compared to 9.81 complaints the previous year. However, American Eagle's on-time performance dropped to 78.6 percent from 2002's 79.1 percent.

In Atlantic Southeast's first year in the survey it reported the poorest on-time performance of 75.4 percent. Its denied boarding performance was 7.86 per 10,000 passengers compared to the industry average of 0.86 denials. Atlantic Southeast's mishandled baggage rate of 15.41 per 1,000 passengers is nearly four times the industry average of four bags per 1,000 passengers. The carrier did have fewer customer complaints - 0.59 per 100,000 passengers - the industry average of 0.67 complaints.

>>Contacts: Dean Headley, Wichita State, (316) 978-3367; Brent Brown, Nebraska, (402) 554-3424.<<