Does Southwest Airlines giving out free drink coupons help them to acheive #1 status?

According to the Customer Service Satisfaction Index, airline passengers feel the airlines are doing a 3.2% better job in customer service compared to the year before.

Although fees are up, the numbers of passengers are down. This means less lines, fewer bumped people, and more room since you might have no one sitting in the center seat.

Southwest Airlines was #1 for customer satisfaction for the 16th year in a row with it’s highest rating ever. The biggest gainers were Delta Airlines, US Airways, and Continental who improved by margins of 6.7% to 9.7%. American Airlines saw the largest decrease (3.2%) and United Airlines ended with the lowest overall score for the year.

It will be interesting to see if the airlines can keep this positive trend going, since hopefully by next year we’ll have a strong economy and fuller planes (and lines).