For the second year in a row, Frontier Airlines — the third-largest carrier at Denver International Airport — had the most consumer complaints among the nation’s 12 largest airlines, the U.S. Department of Transportation reported on Tuesday.
United Airlines, DIA’s largest carrier, followed closely as the second-most maligned airline in 2014. Southwest Airlines — DIA’s second-largest carrier — was ranked second-best.
The DOT’s monthly Air Travel Consumer Report ranks customer complaints about mishandled baggage, on-time arrivals, fares, customer service and other areas.
Of the 465 complaints Denver-based Frontier received in 2014, 168 had to do with flight problems, defined as “cancellations, delays or any other deviations from schedule, whether planned or unplanned.”
United had 2,452 complaints throughout the year, including 745 flight problems, followed by 430 baggage-related complaints and an almost-even split between 286 customer service and 284 reservations/ticketing complaints.
Frontier has been under customer scrutiny in recent months as fliers have voiced dissatisfaction with changes to the airline’s frequent-flier program and passenger perks after it became an ultra-low-cost carrier, or ULCC,
in April
.
Frontier last month announced the outsourcing of 1,160 jobs at DIA, which includes ramp, baggage, gate and ticket-counter jobs as well as jobs in its Denver-based reservations office.
Airline spokesman Todd Lehmacher says customer service remains at the center of all Frontier does.
“Frontier is laser focused on lowering complaints — we take them very seriously and are working hard to exceed our customer’s expectations,” Lehmacher said. “Frontier’s senior leadership team is directly engaged on the issue and improving operational performance and lowering complaints is a high priority.”
The airline has revised its schedule in an effort to improve aircraft and crew routing, which has already resulted in smoother operations, Lehmacher said.
As far as mishandled bags go, Frontier was ranked second-best behind top-rated Virgin America. This was an improvement from the airline’s third-place ranking in 2013.
United ranked seventh worst, and Southwest, despite having a low number of overall customer complaints, ranked ninth.
Following the outsourcing of United Express baggage handling at DIA to Simplicity Ground Services, United passengers at DIA reported thousands of delayed and lost bags during the holiday travel season.
The report also shows mishandled baggage nationwide increased month-over-month in December to 4.25 per 1,000 passengers, up from 2.92 in November.
The year-over-year mishandled baggage rate rose in 2014 to 3.62 per 1,000 passengers from 3.22 in 2013.
Laura Keeney: 303-954-1337, lkeeney@denverpost.com or twitter.com/LauraKeeney
