The survey comes from: Conde Nast, publisher of established magazines covering fashion, technology, food, and travel, including The New Yorker, Vogue, and Wired.

If you had read the article, you would have seen that the survey has been around since 1994. Also, it directly states that: "The index measures consumer satisfaction with various products and services, and this time it focused on U.S. travelers during the first quarter of 2011." They also went on to state this about Delta's score: "A spokesman for the Atlanta-based airline told the the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that it has improved its on-time performance and completion rate, a measure of how many bags reach the right destinations on time. Those actions, taken in recent weeks, were not reflected in the survey, which took place earlier this year." I don't in any way see how this somehow makes the data invalid, it is a snapshot of customer satisfaction in the first quarter of 2011, just as disclosed.

No where in this article did I see: "Southwest is also the only major airline that remains profitable." So, I have no idea where that came from.

So, in a nutshell. 1) It came from Conde Nast, a respected name in the travel field. 2) They directly stated it was done in the first quarter of '11. 3) It reported that moves made by Delta recently were not reflected in this survey.