[jimworcs]

Well, there are statistics and statistics... selecting particular routes doesn't really give the whole picture. If you look at the 12 months to March 2010, Southwest ranked 3rd in overall on-time performance.

CARRIER12 MONTHS ENDINGMar-10%RankHAWAIIAN91.41ALASKA 86.22SOUTHWEST81.83SKYWEST81.64UNITED81.55US AIRWAYS80.76PINNACLE80.37MESA 79.98CONTINENTAL79.39DELTA78.810FRONTIER78.511EXPRESSJET77.712AMERICAN76.813AMERICAN EAGLE76.614JETBLUE75.715AIRTRAN75.616ATLANTIC SOUTHEAST7317COMAIR69.518NORTHWEST(--)(--)Total79.2

Delta came 10th.

Another good overall measure is to look at the number of complaints for each airline as a percentage of the number of customers carried. Here is the table for March 2010, published by the DOT.

Mar-10RANKAIRLINEComplaintsCustomersPercent1SOUTHWEST AIRLINES 269,161,4740.282MESA AIRLINES 3820,1570.373ALASKA AIRLINES 51,350,8810.374ATLANTIC SOUTHEAST AIRLINES 61,206,1880.55AMERICAN EAGLE AIRLINES71,381,8280.516SKYWEST AIRLINES 122,085,7710.587EXPRESSJET AIRLINES91,411,8870.648COMAIR 5572,6410.879PINNACLE AIRLINES121,104,3471.0910FRONTIER AIRLINES 9818,8151.111HAWAIIAN AIRLINES 8703,8451.1412UNITED AIRLINES 624,681,2161.3213AMERICAN AIRLINES 1037,509,3621.3714CONTINENTAL AIRLINES 583,811,9271.5215AIRTRAN AIRWAYS 342,149,2271.5816JETBLUE AIRWAYS362,120,0751.717US AIRWAYS 824,491,6081.8318DELTA AIR LINES**2169,502,4962.27 TOTAL 69354,883,7451.26

At the top, Southwest Airlines and dead last, Delta. Delta receives 10 times as many complaints percentage wise as Southwest. That is huge and reflects what I have been saying. Delta are arrogant and don't need to take care of their customers, because they operate local monopolies and control those markets. This is why they are able to do what they do.