1. Austin Windsor Emily Waugh Tiffany Vidonish Feng Wang

2.  This has caused airlines to lose 26% less luggage in 2009 than 2008  Complaints are down 16% over the same time period  Flight cancelations decreased and on-time arrivals increased from 75% to 78%  The average time of delay of a flight dropped to 55 minutes

3.  Fewer flights  More fees  Travel decline because of the recession made airports and the skies less crowded  Reduced flight delays and cancellations when bad weather or other problems forced airlines to thin out schedules  Fewer passengers and heftier baggage fees reduced the number of checked luggage, so the airlines lost fewer bags

4.  2009 led to more bumping of ticket holders from flights  As airlines shrank schedules to save money and packed more customers onto each flight, overbooking increased which led to passengers being bumped  This still occurred even though the Department of transportation doubled the penalty for bumping passengers  The rate at which airlines denied passengers rose 9%  The rate at which people voluntarily took vouchers rose 15%

5. AirlineCanceled Flights Complaints per 100,000 Fliers On-Time Arrivals Bumped Fliers per 10,000 Baggage Reports per 1,000 AirTran Airways 0.64%0.9975.99%0.241.65 Alaska Airlines1.01%0.5582.38%2.104.06 American Airlines 1.53%1.0875.70%0.504.35 Continental Airlines 0.47%1.0177.91%1.392.72 Delta Air Lines* 0.87%1.6778.55%1.084.07 JetBlue Airways 1.15%0.8977.20%02.54 Southwest Airlines 0.69%0.2182.47%1.293.40 United Airlines1.58%1.3480.54%1.264.02 US Airways1.06%1.3180.51%1.492.97 Industry Average 1.45%0.9978.71%1.223.89

6.  On-time statistics are important for travelers to follow because they are a solid indicator for how well an airline is performing  These statistics are a strong indicator of whether or not a trip will encounter delays and disruptions  Airlines that run close to on-time typically operate well in other aspects of their business, from employee helpfulness to toilet cleanliness

7.  Historically, airline mergers can be disruptive for customers as two carriers try to combine computer systems, fleets, maintenance operations and work forces  So far the merger has been fairly smooth  In 2009 their on time performance ranked 4 th among major airlines  Baggage handling improved, but among the 9 major airlines it ranked 8 th  Also, it was last among the major airlines in customer complaints

8.  In 2009, Chicago’s O’Hare airport opened a new runway  It caused major turnaround, with 77% of flights arriving on time, compared to 67% in 2008  O'Hare's operational performance benefitted from having fewer flights scheduled at the airport  United Airlines uses O’Hare as its main hub and benefited considerably from the new runway  United also launched a revitalization plan which increased their on-time flight arrivals to 80%

9.  Only major airline to have a lower rate of on- time arrivals in 2009 compared to 2008  This dropped them from 4 th place to 8 th place among the 9 major airlines  Although their on-time arrivals dropped, they had the best improvement in baggage handling and finished the year with the lowest rate of baggage problems

10.  Despite a DOT crackdown on airline bumping, overbooking has increased  Trying to deal with financial losses, airlines have packed planes full  More flights were overbooked, with airlines trying to entice volunteers to give up seats in exchange for vouchers toward future trips

11.  The airline has to pay the customer compensation equal to the one-way fare up to $400 if he or she is rescheduled to reach the destination within two hours of the original arrival time for domestic, and four hours for international flights  Customers are entitled to $800 if they reach their destination after those times. (Customers can demand cash instead of airline vouchers if involuntarily denied boarding, but volunteers can't.)  Alaskan Airlines was the worst at overbooking and involuntarily denied boarding to 2,344 passengers