With all the new hassles airline passengers are facing in the wake of the aborted Christmas Day bombing, there is a little good news.
The U.S. Department of Transportation reports the nation's largest airlines set a single-month record in November for on-time performance for the nearly 15 years data have been collected.
Additionally, the Air Travel Consumer Report shows carriers set a record for the lowest rate of mishandled baggage in a single month since September 1987.
Information filed with the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) shows the 19 carriers reporting on-time performance recorded an overall on-time arrival rate of 88.6 percent in November, compared with both November 2008's 83.3 percent and October 2009's 77.3 percent. Since comparable data were first collected in January 1995, the previous high on-time mark for reporting carriers was 88.0 percent in September 2002.
Hawaiian Airlines had the best rate, with flights arriving on time 93.3 percent of the time. It was followed by United and Southwest. The dubious honor of the lowest on-time arrival rate went to Atlantic Southeast Airlines with a rate of 80.5 percent followed by AirTran and Comair.
The airlines posted a mishandled baggage rate of 2.78 reports per 1,000 passengers in November. The previous record low rate for mishandled baggage was September 2009's 3.01 mark.
Other data posted by the airlines for November include:
Cancellations
The carriers canceled 0.5 percent of their scheduled domestic flights compared with the 0.8 percent cancellation rate of November 2008 and the 1.0 percent rate posted in October 2009.
Tarmac delays
Airlines reported that .00079 percent of their scheduled flights had tarmac delays of three hours or more, versus .0013 in November 2008 and .002 percent in October 2009. There were no flights with tarmac delays of four hours or more in November.
Pet-related incidents
There were four incidents involving the loss, death or injury of pets while traveling by air, compared with the total of six reports filed in November 2008 and zero in October 2009. November's incidents involved three deaths and one injury.
Complaints about airline service
DOT received 552 complaints about airline service from consumers, as opposed to 3.6 percent from the 533 complaints filed in November 2008, but 38.4 percent fewer than the total of 896 received in October 2009.
Treatment of disabled passengers
The report also contains a tabulation of complaints filed with DOT against airlines regarding the treatment of passengers with disabilities. The Department received a total of 36 disability-related complaints -- seven more than in November 2008, and 16 fewer than in October 2009.
Discrimination
There were eleven complaints alleging discrimination by airlines due to factors other than disability, including race, religion, national origin or sex. Seven such complaints were recorded in November 2008 and ten were received in October 2009.
Consumers may file their complaints in writing with the Aviation Consumer Protection Division, U.S. Department of Transportation, C-75, W96-432, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20590; by voice mail at (202) 366-2220 or by TTY at (202) 366-0511; or on the web at http://airconsumer.dot.gov.
