The AQR scores for the largest airlines for 2007 resulted in the following ranking:
1. Air Tran
2. Jet Blue
3. Southwest
4. Northwest
5. Frontier
6. Continental
7. Alaska
8. United
9. American
10. Delta
11. US Airways
12. Mesa <-- (Huh?) Mesa is above Comair & SkyWest?
13. SkyWest
14. Comair
15. American Eagle
16. Atlantic Southeast
Criteria included in the AQR are screened to meet two basic elements: They must be readily obtainable from published data sources for each airline, and they must be important to consumers regarding airline quality. The resulting criteria include areas such as baggage handling, customer complaints, denied boardings and on-time arrivals.
Other major industry findings in this year’s research study include:
Only four of the 16 airlines improved their AQR score. They were Air Tran, American Eagle, Atlantic Southeast and Mesa. The most improved airline was Mesa; it improved in three of the four categories – denied boardings, mishandled bags and customer complaints. Its on-time performance was similar to last year.
The airline that declined the most in performance was US Airways.