The Wall Street Journal released today a list of the nation’s nine best performing airlines (See the rankings below).
This is the 12th year of the Middle Seat Scorecard ranking of nine major U.S. airlines on seven areas key to travelers. The data come from masFlight and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Strangely, while all the airlines operate in the same environment including weather, airport congestion and regulations, United, which came in second to last, is blaming climate change.
“Climate change is here. We are seeing worsening weather and much more intense and longer-duration weather events,” Jim DeYoung, vice president of network operations at United told the Journal. “We have to get better at the operational impact of that.”
But DeYoung’s culprit didn’t seem to affect six other airlines in outperforming it. Top-ranked Delta from pulling in much better numbers in terms of on-time arrivals, delays and canceled flights. Delta ranked number 1 in three categories while United failed to rank number one in any. In fact, United ranked in the bottom three in all categories but bumping and complaints.
DeYoung’s assertions about clmate changed have raised more than a few eyebrows.
Delta didn’t credit their success to anything other than how they react to the weather and other challenges.
“While the weather itself is out of our control, how we react to that weather, plan for that weather and work through that weather is certainly within our control,” stated Dave Holtz, Delta’s senior vice president over the airline’s operations center.
Proponents of the climate change theory have found it difficult to reconcile it with data from 2019. This past year continued a 20-year slumber of Atlantic storms and, across the nation, storms are still occurring within their normal range. In essence, while the media is stating that storms are more frequent and worse than previous decades, the actual data does not show it.
The worst airline across the board, according to the study, was American. Once a great airline that ranked high in all categories, the carrier faced walkouts and slowdowns from its mechanics union this year.
WATCH: John Stossel from ABC News moderate a debate on climate change
The newspaper reported: “For more than half of 2019, a contract dispute between American and its mechanics was essentially negotiated on the tarmac, with passengers paying a heavy price. From mid-February through late August, American had a high number of planes out of service each morning, forcing cancellations and delays and leaving customers stranded. The airline got a federal judge to order mechanics to end a work slowdown in June, but the dispute continued through the peak summer season.”
