Southwest And JetBlue Top Annual List Of Most Satisfying Air Carriers
by Grant Martin
Travelers flying on Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways will end up relatively more satisfied with their journeys, according to new airline satisfaction data published this morning. According to an annual survey published by J.D. Power, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is the most satisfying carrier in North America followed by New York City-based JetBlue Airways.
Delta Air Lines, Alaska and Westjet followed the two leaders in third, fourth and fifth place respectively. Spirit Airways was at the back of the pack in 10th place.
From last year, Southwest and JetBlue both maintained leads over the rest of the airline industry. Last year, the carriers were tied for first place; this year, Southwest Airlines pulled into a slight lead over JetBlue.
The airline industry as a whole has also improved over last year’s survey. Compared to last year, travelers were 1.8% more satisfied with combined air travel (long and short haul) in 2020.
All of that may change, however, given the state of the industry embroiled in the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, a worldwide event that has driven passenger volumes down into the single digits.
Interestingly, the effects of the pandemic seem to be driving passenger satisfaction up. “We did look at the last month of collected data (March 2020) and saw a slight rise in overall satisfaction in both the Airline and Airport studies.” said Michael Taylor, who leads the travel practice for J. D. Power. “This is mainly attributable to a lack of crowding at the airport and inside the aircraft.”
As J.D. Power collects data moving forward, Taylor also expects to see the pandemic playing a larger role in how travelers gauge levels of satisfaction. “Airline success in the post-COVID-19 era will hinge on a combination of building consumer confidence and operational flexibility with changing schedules and routes,” he says.
To that end, factors like value and safety may end up more front of mind when passengers think through satisfaction. From the value perspective, many carriers have released flexible cancellation and change policies that help passengers rebook when journeys are disrupted; better policies around handling changed or cancelled flights will likely correlate to higher satisfaction scores moving forward.
Safety will also play a big role in passenger satisfaction. If a traveler sees an air carrier taking cabin cleanliness and social distancing measures seriously, the degree of satisfaction will go up.
As airlines and airports become more crowded in the coming months, those value and cleanliness standards will go under the microscope as passengers scrutinize the process and the full system is stress tested. And if any parts of that process start to break down, next year’s airline satisfaction study may look far different.