2021’s Best & Worst Airlines – WalletHub Report

Spring is here and after being in lockdowns most of us need to get out of the house and take a vacation. Air travel is on the rebound. The cheapest domestic leisure airfares, which include those promotional fares that airlines send to your inbox, were $59.48 as of March 15, still 26% lower than a similar week in 2019. US airlines are on track to lose on average of $150 million a day.

With the average air travel leisure fare at $187 but prices rising as travel begins to pick up again, WalletHub today released its report on 2021’s Best Airlines. Their study focuses not just on price but also many other aspects of the air travel experience, such as safety, delays, baggage issues, animal incidents, passenger complaints and more.

Highlights

• Best Overall – Alaska Airlines earned the highest overall WalletHub Score (56.54) for the third year in a row, followed by Delta Air Lines (55.98).
• Most Reliable – Southwest Airlines has the lowest overall rate of cancellations, delays, mishandled luggage and denied boardings. The next most reliable company is United Airlines.
• Safety – Alaska Airlines is the safest, with a low number of incidents and accidents per 100,000 flight operations, no fatalities and fewer than 15 people injured between 2014 and 2019. Alaska Airlines also has a relatively new fleet of aircrafts. The safety runner-up is Envoy Air.
• Most Pet-Friendly – Three airlines tied for being most pet-friendly – Alaska Airlines, SkyWest Airlines and Envoy Air – with no incidents.
• Most Comfortable – JetBlue Airways leads the pack in terms of in-flight experience, offering free amenities such as Wi-Fi, extra legroom, and complimentary snacks and beverages. Alaska Airlines, Southwest Airlines & Delta Air Lines are tied for the second position for this category.

WalletHub Q & A

What measures can airlines undertake in order to diminish their pilor shortage?

“In my opinion, airlines need to be intentional in a couple of different ways,” said David Macomber, Andrews University. “First, they should create pathways where the airline sponsors potential pilots through flight training and the initial stages of getting their required flight time. There is a high cost to flight training combined with a student loan crisis, so reducing the impact of that barrier to entry by providing a reasonable expectation of a job at the end of training and qualification would go a long way. Also, they should seek to promote aviation more intently to a younger demographic, focusing efforts on middle- and high-school-aged children as a lucrative career option.”

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and drastic reduction in air travel, a lot of airlines in the United States (U.S.) resorted to cost-cutting measures by reducing their workforce, through early retirements and furloughs of some aircrew such as pilots.,” said Daniel Kwasi Adjekum, PhD, CSP, University of North Dakota. “In my opinion, some of these reductions in the workforce may not be fully recovered now that the COVID-19 situation seems to be improving and some airlines are ramping up flight operations. A pilot shortage has both operational and financial implications for airlines. Operating with a limited pilot workforce can reduce the number of routes and the frequency of flights serviced due to factors such as flight time limitations.”

Is there an easy measure that airlines can implement in order to reduce congestion at the counter?

“Many Airlines have their Pipeline Programs with Universities or flight training schools, for example, my Institute is part of the Southwest Destination 225 Program and many other programs with different airlines,” said Victor Huang, PhD, University of Nebraska Omaha. “Another approach Airlines are moving forward these days is to have their own flight training program, for example, United Airlines just launched their training program called United Aviate Program.”

“Self-service of boarding passes and bag tags will eliminate the need for most customers to stop at a ticket counter. Many airlines are doing this now,” said Ben Baldanza, George Mason University. “Many airlines are doing this now. This makes the lines short for the fewer passengers that need some kind of special service.”

How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the airline industry?

“The pandemic had a significant impact on the airline industry. The industry has seen enormous financial losses,” said Becky Lutte, PhD, CFII, MEI, University of Nebraska at Omaha. “IATA estimates the global industry losses for 2020 to be $118 billion. In Spring of 2020, US airlines reported international travel was down 93% and the US airlines had parked half of their fleets. This is why in the near term focus will be on spooling up operations as demand continues to come back. The short-term focus will be on economic recovery. However, there are also lessons learned about the ability of the airline industry to be innovative and their contributions to society. Airlines displayed great flexibility by using innovative approaches such as taking all passenger aircraft and converting them to cargo operations to meet demand. Additionally, airlines played a key role in the delivery of much-needed medical supplies and the distribution of the vaccine. The pandemic showed the critical role airlines play in addressing this global pandemic.”

“First and foremost, the demand for air travel declined in a big way. For example, the U.S. airports used to process circa 2.4 million pax a day before COVID-19 according to Airlines for America,” said R. Tolga Turgut, PhD, MBA, Florida Institute of Technology. “This figure immediately went down as low as circa 0.5 million pax a day in the late Spring and Summer months of 2020. Fortunately, we have begun to see strong signs of a return to the pre-pandemic era as of late. The first signs of a return to normalcy came with domestic travel in the USA. American Airlines (AA) is to offer more than 90% of its pre-pandemic seating capacity within the US and 80% of its international capacity. Other airlines in the U.S. such as United, Allegiant, and Frontier are also planning to offer more flights because of seeing fuller flights and rising numbers of future bookings. Similar figures to domestic travel are also observed in European Union as the summer season approaches as well.”

For the full list of 2021’s Best & Worst Airlines, please visit:

https://www.wallethub.com/edu/best-airlines/20916/

Courtesy: WalletHub