Congratulations to WN for winning their 2nd consecutive JD Power award in the LCC category, and to ALL my 23,000 co-workers at AS on our 11th straight JD Power award for the traditional network carrier category! The people of WN and AS should be proud of this recognition, which has become the “gold standard” for customer satisfaction.

Well done!!

EA CO AS wrote:

Congratulations to WN for winning their 2nd consecutive JD Power award in the LCC category, and to ALL my 23,000 co-workers at AS on our 11th straight JD Power award for the traditional network carrier category! The people of WN and AS should be proud of this recognition, which has become the “gold standard” for customer satisfaction.

Well done!!

Congrats to Alaska from this WN employee. Hoping to experience the Alaska hospitality soon!

Congrats to both, WN is the real standout as they would have won in both categories. I don’t understand how WN is still considered a LCC but AS isn’t? When correct me if I’m wrong WN cost are higher than AS.

Seems odd and a slight disadvantage for network carriers in the majors category.

LawAndOrder wrote:

Congrats to both, WN is the real standout as they would have won in both categories. I don’t understand how WN is still considered a LCC but AS isn’t? When correct me if I’m wrong WN cost are higher than AS.

Seems odd and a slight disadvantage for network carriers in the majors category.

They lines are getting blurred but AS is a legacy, has a premium class, lounges, assigmed seats, and international partners. I don't think they look at actual cost.

Kind of misleading that they put AS in a separate category from B6. B6 scored higher than Alaska, but B6 for some reason is a "LCC" compared to them despite having more of a international presence and better business class and economy class cabin. (TVs , free wi-fi, more legroom, list goes on).

But congrats to Alaska for scoring third overall behind Southwest and JetBlue I guess....

Yeah that is random. When comparing B6 and AS, I feel AS is more LCC.

Luv WN! Awesome reliability!

According to the J.D. Power 2018 North America Airline Satisfaction Study, overall airline passenger satisfaction came in at 762 points out of a total of 1,000 points, reflecting a consistent trend of improvement over the past seven years.

https://news.alphastreet.com/surprising ... isfaction/

Among traditional carriers, Alaska Airlines secured the top place with a score of 775 points

That is because people have gotten use to the service cuts done a decade or so ago, and things like the attitude of flight attendants and what not on US airline are nowhere bad as people on A.net want you to think (obviously there are some bad eggs).

Glass half full.

A very low bar indeed.

How are they giving more credence to Alaska by calling it a "traditional carrier" and touting its 775 rating, and then buried in the article, they call Southwest an LCC and treat its 818 rating like it doesn't mean much, even though WN is much larger than Alaska? Both entities should be proud of their rating, but to put Southwest on the backburner in favor of Alaska seems strange in my opinion.

BC77008 wrote:

How are they giving more credence to Alaska by calling it a "traditional carrier" and touting its 775 rating, and then buried in the article, they call Southwest an LCC and treat its 818 rating like it doesn't mean much, even though WN is much larger than Alaska? Both entities should be proud of their rating, but to put Southwest on the backburner in favor of Alaska seems strange in my opinion.

Alaska is a legacy carrier(hence the term “traditional”) Southwest is not a legacy carrier.

I wouldn't call it surprising. The legacy carriers in the US are nowhere as bad as some people on here will make you think and bare bones pricing is becoming the new normal. Sure there are some rough FA's, but every airline has that. The US carriers might not have the best first class service, but the vast majority of travelers (who are answering these surveys) are flying economy.

The article says the increase in ratings is due to more comfort in flight, as well as "improving the entire process of ticket reservations, baggage check-in, entering and exiting of the aircraft along with increased overhead storage space within the aircraft." However, food, beverage, and entertainment options are pain points with passengers.

Since customer satisfaction is the difference between customer expectations and the delivered experience, perhaps the higher ratings are due to customers expecting last year's experience, and receiving something slightly better. Given that the airline experience was so poor several years ago, small improvements each year can significantly drive the rating up.

The rating may also be influenced by consistency in delivery according to expectations. Increased consistency should drive overall scores higher. WN seems to be very consistent, while other carriers may be better on a higher percentage of flights yet horrible on a few. Kahnemann's teachings on bias reveal that a negative experience is brought to the forefront of thinking faster than a good experience. Thus, a few horrible flights can be overweighted in customer ratings.

Soft bigotry of low expectations. That's all.

No surprise. In the last couple years wifi has gotten faster and more reliable, power ports are showing up more frequently, extra legroom seats have been more widely introduced to buy-up into, free snacks in the economy cabin have been re-introduced, and every major carrier has free entertainment. Considering the scale of the network of American carriers that's pretty amazing.

Outside of Anet people just care about their flight being on time and cheap. Only ppl here care that the flight attendant flirted with them or gave them a hug or whatever.

Re: AS v B6. I’m guessing it’s more from an historical perspective. B6 was single class, no regional, single fleet type, etc. I’d imagine at some point they’ll change it.

CobaltScar wrote:

Kind of misleading that they put AS in a separate category from B6. B6 scored higher than Alaska, but B6 for some reason is a "LCC" compared to them despite having more of a international presence and better business class and economy class cabin. (TVs , free wi-fi, more legroom, list goes on).

But congrats to Alaska for scoring third overall behind Southwest and JetBlue I guess....

At least you have something to do with all your sour grapes now.

How can Alaska fare so high when on a flight from AUS to SFO, all you get is a cup of soda? No snacks.

yeah I don’t get it either haha. i lived in the pac nw for years and flew them quite a bit. I always found them to be rather ..mmm ok. nothing special that’s for sure. but congrats to AS and WN employees regardless.

toobz wrote:

yeah I don’t get it either haha. i lived in the pac nw for years and flew them quite a bit. I always found them to be rather ..mmm ok. nothing special that’s for sure. but congrats to AS and WN employees regardless.

It may not be that Alaska is great. It might just be that others suck worse.

globetrotter94 wrote:

Soft bigotry of low expectations. That's all.

According to who? WN has an amazing product and business model. I have become a huge WN flyer (Companion Pass 4 years now) because for work, cost and flexibility are key. WN knows this and thus they have had the success they are experiencing. Love (no pun intended) them or not, they do the job and do it very well. They might be too low for your standards but I will continue to fly them religiously.

Have recently flown 6 segments on AS, I have to say, most impressed I have been with a domestic flight, wonderful service, great interiors, and the streaming entertainment was great. If I flew them more, I would get the Gogo pass, wifi is pricey per flight (thanks WN A-List Preferred for the free wifi). Very impressed with AS tho.

Ziyulu wrote:

How can Alaska fare so high when on a flight from AUS to SFO, all you get is a cup of soda? No snacks.

Never flown AS, but I do know that is a legacy VX flight. Alaska serves a snack on their SAN-STL flight, which is not much further than AUS. I would imagine this has more to do with AUS-SFO being a previous VX flight than anything. I would expect that to change in the coming months.

BC77008 wrote:

How are they giving more credence to Alaska by calling it a "traditional carrier" and touting its 775 rating, and then buried in the article, they call Southwest an LCC and treat its 818 rating like it doesn't mean much, even though WN is much larger than Alaska? Both entities should be proud of their rating, but to put Southwest on the backburner in favor of Alaska seems strange in my opinion.

An airline has to operate multi-cabin aircraft and a traditional hub-spoke model at a minimum in order to be considered for the traditional category, I believe a lounge system also comes into play but I'm not sure if that's one of the threshold requirements to be considered a traditional full service carrier at the moment. Excluding Southwest as a traditional full service carrier still makes quite a bit of sense, JetBlue however is probably blurring the line a bit more closely though.

Ziyulu wrote:

How can Alaska fare so high when on a flight from AUS to SFO, all you get is a cup of soda? No snacks.

Are you talking about food that is free of charge in economy, or at all? Alaska has a pretty competitive buy onboard menu for flights that length. No U.S. airline offers complimentary economy meals on flights that length, only onselect transcon and Hawaii flights.

WkndWanderer wrote:

BC77008 wrote:

How are they giving more credence to Alaska by calling it a "traditional carrier" and touting its 775 rating, and then buried in the article, they call Southwest an LCC and treat its 818 rating like it doesn't mean much, even though WN is much larger than Alaska? Both entities should be proud of their rating, but to put Southwest on the backburner in favor of Alaska seems strange in my opinion.

An airline has to operate multi-cabin aircraft and a traditional hub-spoke model at a minimum in order to be considered for the traditional category, I believe a lounge system also comes into play but I'm not sure if that's one of the threshold requirements to be considered a traditional full service carrier at the moment. Excluding Southwest as a traditional full service carrier still makes quite a bit of sense, JetBlue however is probably blurring the line a bit more closely though.

That's not a bad intuitive explanation, but have you seen that in print from JD Power?

EA CO AS wrote:

Congratulations to WN for winning their 2nd consecutive JD Power award in the LCC category, and to ALL my 23,000 co-workers at AS on our 11th straight JD Power award for the traditional network carrier category! The people of WN and AS should be proud of this recognition, which has become the “gold standard” for customer satisfaction.

Well done!!

PSTs galore, I'm going to treat myself this time!

WkndWanderer wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

How can Alaska fare so high when on a flight from AUS to SFO, all you get is a cup of soda? No snacks.

Are you talking about food that is free of charge in economy, or at all? Alaska has a pretty competitive buy onboard menu for flights that length. No U.S. airline offers complimentary economy meals on flights that length, only onselect transcon and Hawaii flights.

No free snacks at all. Just a cup of soda. On United, American, or Delta, you at least get a small bag of pretzels or peanuts. Even if it was an ex Virgin America flight, Alaska did not do a good job integrating. Including snacks should be an easy fix.

Ziyulu wrote:

WkndWanderer wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

How can Alaska fare so high when on a flight from AUS to SFO, all you get is a cup of soda? No snacks.

Are you talking about food that is free of charge in economy, or at all? Alaska has a pretty competitive buy onboard menu for flights that length. No U.S. airline offers complimentary economy meals on flights that length, only onselect transcon and Hawaii flights.

No free snacks at all. Just a cup of soda. On United, American, or Delta, you at least get a small bag of pretzels or peanuts. Even if it was an ex Virgin America flight, Alaska did not do a good job integrating. Including snacks should be an easy fix.

The integration is still underway. In October, service on ex-VX aircraft should be more in sync with what you currently get on AS. But, saying that Alaska did not do a great job of integrating because you didn't get your snack is a stretch. I'd love to read your Yelp! reviews.

Ziyulu wrote:

No free snacks at all.

Patently false. Free snacks are offered on every AS flight.

EA CO AS wrote:

Congratulations to WN for winning their 2nd consecutive JD Power award in the LCC category, and to ALL my 23,000 co-workers at AS on our 11th straight JD Power award for the traditional network carrier category! The people of WN and AS should be proud of this recognition, which has become the “gold standard” for customer satisfaction.

Well done!!

Congratulations, I know everyone will be competing hard to make the industry even better.

toobz wrote:

Yeah that is random. When comparing B6 and AS, I feel AS is more LCC.

Lounges.

First Class on all planes (except Q400s)

"Express" network

codeshares with domestic and international carriers

Full distribution methods.

200+ aircraft

Oh wait, were you talking about Jetblue as a LCC???

EA CO AS wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

No free snacks at all.

Patently false. Free snacks are offered on every AS flight.

No, there were not any snacks. I was on the flight. Were you on my flight? No.

Congratulations to everyone at AS. WIth 11 of these in a row the award should be renamed the "JD Power Alaska Airlines Traditional Carrier of the Year".

Ziyulu wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

No free snacks at all.

Patently false. Free snacks are offered on every AS flight.

No, there were not any snacks. I was on the flight. Were you on my flight? No.

Was it AS metal or VX metal?

EA CO AS wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

No free snacks at all.

Patently false. Free snacks are offered on every AS flight.

There are no free snacks on VX, and the SFO - AUS route is on VX metal. Hopefully, the service between AS and VX metal will align soon. Although, I find it kind of ridiculous that people make such a huge deal over free snacks lol

FirstBizFlyer wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

No free snacks at all.

Patently false. Free snacks are offered on every AS flight.

There are no free snacks on VX, and the SFO - AUS route is on VX metal. Hopefully, the service between AS and VX metal will align soon. Although, I find it kind of ridiculous that people make such a huge deal over free snacks lol

The worst free snack I ever had was on AS. I got my little bag, opened it, and ONE mini pretzel fell out. lol Obviously a packaging error, but it was quite amusing.

Also, we should give a big shoutout to United. Anyone want to hazard a guess where UA ranked?

bgm wrote:

Also, we should give a big shoutout to United. Anyone want to hazard a guess where UA ranked?

Well ahead of SW, B6, and VX in on-time arrivals for 2017 and 2018.

PlanesNTrains wrote:

FirstBizFlyer wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

Patently false. Free snacks are offered on every AS flight.

There are no free snacks on VX, and the SFO - AUS route is on VX metal. Hopefully, the service between AS and VX metal will align soon. Although, I find it kind of ridiculous that people make such a huge deal over free snacks lol

The worst free snack I ever had was on AS. I got my little bag, opened it, and ONE mini pretzel fell out. lol Obviously a packaging error, but it was quite amusing.

I'd call it the best free snack, since it came with a complimentary story to tell at cocktail parties and on internet message boards!

usxguy wrote:

toobz wrote:

Yeah that is random. When comparing B6 and AS, I feel AS is more LCC.

Lounges.

First Class on all planes (except Q400s)

"Express" network

codeshares with domestic and international carriers

Full distribution methods.

200+ aircraft

Oh wait, were you talking about Jetblue as a LCC???

AS planes are rather bare bones. I definitely will take B6 over an AS aircraft anyday. The only reason to take AS is if you are traveling up and down the west coast.

UA arrives on time once they get rid of the dogs and make it through the passenger-dragging phase of boarding.

EA CO AS wrote:

Ziyulu wrote:

No free snacks at all.

Patently false. Free snacks are offered on every AS flight.

Not on the Airbus

Chemist wrote:

UA arrives on time once they get rid of the dogs and make it through the passenger-dragging phase of boarding.

Not to mention the other reason they are on-time: they've enhanced away those pesky medical diversions for gravely ill pax.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/man-sues- ... diversion/

739er wrote:

bgm wrote:

739er wrote:

Well ahead of SW, B6, and VX in on-time arrivals for 2017 and 2018.

That answer was very Kellyanne Conartist-esque. Was the JD Power award only for on time arrivals?

Nice try.

No bgm.....Obviously it overlooked abysmal on-time performance.

If WN was able to score higher than any other airline despite its on time performance, that says a lot about what else they are doing right- and how they handle their delays from a customer service standpoint. Customers are able to forgive, and be understanding when they are treated honestly and fairly on a consistent basis, and without the hassles of various fees. Although WN has been carrying an imcreasing number of connecting passengers than before, they are still a predominantly point to point airline that doesn’t fly its aircraft back and forth from a hub all day to facilitate connections. They have the most diverse/point to point domestic network of any US carrier. When you look at the number of stations where they have 70, 80, 90 or more departures a day- and the aircraft flows they have (as far as routings go), it can be difficult for them to catch their aircraft and crews up to where they should be to mitigate downline delays when severe weather affects a large part of the country.

airplaneboy wrote:

If WN was able to score higher than any other airline despite its on time performance, that says a lot about what else they are doing right- and how they handle their delays from a customer service standpoint.

Actually it also says a lot about other airline's total on-time performance including both mainline and regional. By operating all their own flights, WN can't tout phony on-time performance or completion percentages while putting "mainline only" in fine print. JD Power defeats this subterfuge by conducting surveys. Many people fly airlines like 9E and others daily without realizing that a cancelled flight or late arrival "doesn't count" in the mainline airline's statistics. If you ask them in a survey, they will count it against the mainline airline who sold them a ticket.