[paula49]

Arrived to New Orleans airport counter with boarding pass and prepaid bagage a bit late due to traffic and having to search for a wheelchair for our disabled companion. Ask at counter if we could move to front of long line because our flight was just 45 mins from leaving and we needed to be security cleared and at the gate within 15 minutes. I was blantanly told "no", we should have gotten there earlier.
Fortunately the other passengers, with later flights were more courteous than the staff and allowed us to check our bags ahead of them. You know my 86 yr. old Mom never had a wheelchair ride like that!

[jimworcs]

Delta no longer value customer service. They see passengers who are late, for whatever reason, as a revenue opportunity rather than someone who needs assistance. If they can deny you boarding, they can then charge you $150 each to amend your ticket. It is as simple as that. Since Delta was allowed to emerge from bankruptcy and then rewarded by having their merger with NW approved, they have plunged to the bottom of the customer complaints league, whilst at the same time exploiting their local monopolies to rip off customers. The only answer is to stop flying with them.

[The_Judge]

While I'm not defending DL in any way, shape or form......they are % wise, not the bottom of the list. There are 5 airlines worse than them, according to the numbers I found. The list is a ways down but it's there. They obviously have the most complaints but percentagewise, they are middle of the pack.

Check it out

Also, as a sidenote.......I found this interesting for all you WN lovers out there. The list I'm referring to is Most Frequently Delayed Flights. Here is the list and the link........

Most Frequently Delayed Flights

1. Southwest Airlines flight 1142 from Baltimore to New York LaGuardia – late 100.0 percent of the time
2. Southwest Airlines flight 1229 from New York LaGuardia to Chicago Midway – late 93.75 percent of the time
2. Southwest Airlines flight 1138 from Denver to Kansas City, MO – late 93.75 percent of the time
4. Southwest Airlines flight 1599 from Baltimore to New York LaGuardia – late 87.50 percent of the time
4. Southwest Airlines flight 1925 from Baltimore to Hartford, CT – late 87.50 percent of the time
4. Southwest Airlines flight 2585 from Houston Hobby to Albuquerque, NM – late 87.50 percent of the time
4. Southwest Airlines flight 3922 from Houston Hobby to Austin, TX – late 87.50 percent of the time

WN sucks

[jimworcs]

Well, there are statistics and statistics... selecting particular routes doesn't really give the whole picture. If you look at the 12 months to March 2010, Southwest ranked 3rd in overall on-time performance.

CARRIER12 MONTHS ENDINGMar-10%RankHAWAIIAN91.41ALASKA 86.22SOUTHWEST81.83SKYWEST81.64UNITED81.55US AIRWAYS80.76PINNACLE80.37MESA 79.98CONTINENTAL79.39DELTA78.810FRONTIER78.511EXPRESSJET77.712AMERICAN76.813AMERICAN EAGLE76.614JETBLUE75.715AIRTRAN75.616ATLANTIC SOUTHEAST7317COMAIR69.518NORTHWEST(--)(--)Total79.2

Delta came 10th.

Another good overall measure is to look at the number of complaints for each airline as a percentage of the number of customers carried. Here is the table for March 2010, published by the DOT.

Mar-10RANKAIRLINEComplaintsCustomersPercent1SOUTHWEST AIRLINES 269,161,4740.282MESA AIRLINES 3820,1570.373ALASKA AIRLINES 51,350,8810.374ATLANTIC SOUTHEAST AIRLINES 61,206,1880.55AMERICAN EAGLE AIRLINES71,381,8280.516SKYWEST AIRLINES 122,085,7710.587EXPRESSJET AIRLINES91,411,8870.648COMAIR 5572,6410.879PINNACLE AIRLINES121,104,3471.0910FRONTIER AIRLINES 9818,8151.111HAWAIIAN AIRLINES 8703,8451.1412UNITED AIRLINES 624,681,2161.3213AMERICAN AIRLINES 1037,509,3621.3714CONTINENTAL AIRLINES 583,811,9271.5215AIRTRAN AIRWAYS 342,149,2271.5816JETBLUE AIRWAYS362,120,0751.717US AIRWAYS 824,491,6081.8318DELTA AIR LINES**2169,502,4962.27 TOTAL 69354,883,7451.26

At the top, Southwest Airlines and dead last, Delta. Delta receives 10 times as many complaints percentage wise as Southwest. That is huge and reflects what I have been saying. Delta are arrogant and don't need to take care of their customers, because they operate local monopolies and control those markets. This is why they are able to do what they do.

[jimworcs]

Sorry, they were in tables when I posted them..this is them in tables

ON TIME PERFORMANCE

1. HAWAIIAN 91.4
2. ALASKA 86.2
3. SOUTHWEST 81.8
4. SKYWEST 81.6
5. UNITED 81.5
6. US AIRWAYS 80.7
7. PINNACLE 80.3
8. MESA 79.9
9. CONTINENTAL 79.3
10 DELTA 78.8
11 FRONTIER 78.5
12 EXPRESSJET 77.7
13 AMERICAN 76.8
14 AMERICANEAGLE 76.6
15 JETBLUE 75.7
16 AIRTRAN 75.6
17 ATLTIC Sth-EST 73
18 COMAIR 69.5

SOUTHWEST came third, by far the best of the large scale carriers.

In overall complaints by customers they do even better.

1 SOUTHWEST AIRLINES 0.28
2 MESA AIRLINES 0.37
3 ALASKA AIRLINES 0.37
4 ATLANTIC SOUTHEAST AIRLINES 0.5
5 AMERICAN EAGLE AIRLINES 0.51
6 SKYWEST AIRLINES 0.58
7 EXPRESSJET AIRLINES 0.64
8 COMAIR 0.87
9 PINNACLE AIRLINES 1.09
10 FRONTIER AIRLINES 1.10
11 HAWAIIAN AIRLINES 1.14
12 UNITED AIRLINES 1.32
13 AMERICAN AIRLINES 1.37
14 CONTINENTAL AIRLINES 1.52
15 AIRTRAN AIRWAYS 1.58
16 JETBLUE AIRWAYS 1.70
17 US AIRWAYS 1.83
18 DELTA AIR LINES** 2.27

Time to acknowlege Judge that Southwest are excellent compared to the nightmare legacies and my particular obsession, the horror story that is Delta Airlines.

[The_Judge]

Yes, yes, yes........I misread the charts and graphs about their complaints. They are indeed dead last per 100k enplanements.

Again off-topic but it is astounding to me (not my stats, the DOT's, I'm just bringing attention to it) is that the worst flights in the nation for on-time all belong to one airline and that airline is known for being a cut above. I wonder why that is? Not being sarcastic it just truly is mind-boggling. It's not just one route, the flights are spread out across the nation. Amazing.

[jimworcs]

I agree.. and frankly, if regulation was re-introduced you could do something about it. Often, persistently late routes are due to competitive scheduling. The airline schedules a flight at a time which is unrealistic to achieve given the volume of traffic available. In a properly regulated market, the slots would be managed by the FAA and such scheduling would not be possible. It is surprising that Southwest are the airline most commonly doing this.. lets see if it is a statistical anomoly or if this is something which is happening consistently. Given the wide geographic spread of the routes, I do think the fault would have to be squarely at the airline's door.