A study that examined consumer feedback from 17 airlines found the best-performing airlines were low-fare carriers. For the third consecutive year, Jet Blue Airways was ranked as the best-performing airline in the 2005 Airline Quality Rating (AQR) study. Following Jet Blue in the top five of the AQR are AirTran Airways, Independence Air, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. The rating is conducted annually by the University of Nebraska at Omaha Aviation Institute and the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. It uses 15 elements important to consumers, such as baggage handling, on-time arrivals, denied boarding and customer complaints.

While low-cost carriers performed well in the survey, researchers also found that consumer scores overall were the lowest in five years. All of the carriers in the survey performed poorly in baggage handling, and only five of the 17 carriers measured on-time boarding at more than 80 percent.

SkyWest Airlines had the best on-time performance for 2005, Jet Blue had the lowest denied-boarding rate, AirTran Airways had the best baggage handling rates and Southwest Airlines had the lowest consumer-complaint rate.

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