U.S. Airline Customer Complaint Trends: A Decade-Long Analysis (2013-2022) Including COVID-19 Impacts

Kunsoon Park and Seungwon Shawn Lee

International Business Research, 2025, vol. 17, issue 5, 131

Abstract: The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 significantly reshaped the U.S. aviation industry, transitioning from government-controlled pricing and service standards to market-driven dynamics. This shift led to the rise of low-cost carriers, reduced service quality, and increased customer complaints. In response to fluctuating service standards, the Air Travel Consumer Report (ATCR) was introduced in 1987 to provide transparency in airline service quality. This study leverages ATCR data from 2013 to 2022 to analyze trends in customer complaints across major U.S. airlines. The primary objectives are identifying the major customer complaints and determining which airlines received the most complaints during the studied period including the COVID-19 pandemic era. Results indicate that flight problems, refunds, baggage issues, customer service, and reservations/ticketing/boarding are the top complaints, with refunds peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic due to travel restrictions. Airlines such as Frontier, Spirit, and United consistently received higher complaints, while Alaska, Delta, and SkyWest had fewer complaints. The study underscores the importance of service quality in fostering customer satisfaction and loyalty, suggesting that airlines should focus on reducing complaints in key areas to enhance service quality. The findings provide valuable insights for both airlines and consumers, highlighting areas for improvement and aiding consumers in making informed choices. This study also emphasizes the need for comprehensive service quality measures beyond consumer complaints to assess airline performance accurately.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ibr/article/download/0/0/50748/54998 (application/pdf)
https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ibr/article/view/0/50748 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ibn:ibrjnl:v:17:y:2025:i:5:p:131

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Business Research from Canadian Center of Science and Education Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Canadian Center of Science and Education ().