News & Advice

Airlines Report Lowest Passenger Bumping Rates Ever

What a difference a year makes.
Image may contain Airport Human Person Terminal and Airport Terminal
Getty

Have you been bumped from a flight recently? The Transportation Department is willing to bet that you haven't, or at least, not as much as you used to.

According to the most recent Air Travel Consumer Report, released on Thursday, the 12 largest airlines involuntarily denied boarding to a total of 2,745 passengers over the three-month period between July and September of 2017. That number represents .15 passengers of every 10,000. For comparison, almost 12,000 passengers—.69 for every 10,000—were bumped from their flights over the same period of 2016.

That statistic beats out the second quarter of 2017's rate of .44 passengers per 10,000, and it's the lowest number since the department first starting tracking bumped passenger numbers in 1995. USA Today claims that the drastic change likely has something to do with the bad press airlines received over the last few months for liberally (if a little aggressively) bumping passengers. In April 2017, United famously bumped four passengers and removed one by force.

Of the airlines who reported their statistics, Delta, Virgin, JetBlue, and United had the lowest bumping rates while Spirit, Frontier, and Southwest—three airlines whose base fares do not allow passengers to pre-select their seat assignments—had the highest numbers. The report also covered cancellations, flight delays, mishandled bags, and tarmac delays. The recorded airlines canceled 3.3 percent of domestic flights in September, compared to .3 percent for the same month in 2016. That isn't too surprising though, given the intensity of 2017's hurricane season.

Flights also arrived within 15 minutes of their schedules 83.6 percent of the time in September, which is worse (but pretty close) to last September's 85.5 percent. Hawaiian, Delta, and Alaska reported being on-time the most, while JetBlue, Virgin, and Spirit had the most delays.