The Difference Between the Best and Worst Airlines

As we have seen with schools and cities, ranking an airline also depends on which categories you select. For example, you might or might not include comfort.

More complicated than it sounds, comfort could involve whether an airline lets us recline. Described by CNN, recline mechanisms are an airline expense because they need maintenance,. Also, recline gadgets add weight to the plane which matters because more weight means more fuel. And finally, as we know, they have an inflight disruption cost.when passengers clash over who “owns” the recline space. Consequently, an increasing number of airlines are installing “pre-reclined” seats–a decision that certainly relates to how we might rate an airline.

Also, I started to contemplate comfort after reading about backpack injuries. No, I do not mean the heavy backpacks that harm the individuals carrying them. I mean all the people we bop as we walk up and down a narrow airline aisle. In a recent WSJ article, we are told that airlines encourage onboard backpacks through baggage fees and lost luggage woes. One person even calculated that, for backpack hits, the left side of the aisle is more dangerous than the right.

So, where are we going? Today’s destination is the WSJ annual airline scoreboard and how the seven categories they select are about much more than a single word or number.

The Best and Worst Airlines

For several years, Delta, Alaska, and Southwest have moved around the top 3 lineup in the WSJ Scorecard. Meanwhile. JetBlue was last for the second year among the nine major carriers:

Making it a chaotic year for flying, we had bad weather, covid-related staff shortages that coincided with a surge in flying, and some air traffic control glitches. Up 69 percent, flight cancellations were the biggest problem at a 2.6 percent average per carrier. Looking back, we can say that during the pandemic, it was easier to arrive on time because of pandemic flight reductions. No more. Down from 87.9 percent in 2021, Delta had the top on time record at an 81.7 percent rate. We should note that the Southwest holiday meltdown happened too late to be included in the current ranking.

This 2022 scorecard has the details:

Our Bottom Line: Airline Competition

Our opinion of the best and worst airlines can depend on how they want to compete. For the airline industry, it is tougher to generalize about competitive strategies because market behavior can depend on the route. Still though, we are close to oligopoly because the firms are large, they have pricing power, and market entry and exit can be difficult. And, we can generally say that they all, in their own way, try to achieve product differentiation. After all, we know how Southwest differs from United and JetBlue.

On a continuum, we start with the most competitive markets on the left and then see increasingly powerful firms as we move closer to monopoly:

Returning to where we began, can we call pre-reclined seats a competitive strategy that contributes to a comfort rank?

My sources and more: I was delight to see it was time again for WSJ’s annual airline quality scorecard. From there, for omitted categories, this backpack article was a fun read, I also returned to econlife for recline rage while a CNN update on reclining came in handy. (We copied Our Bottom Line from our previous WSJ scoreboard post.)