Aviation

Top 10 Airlines in America 2018

Southwest Airlines delivers the best customer experience in the airline industry, according to the 2018 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual customer experience benchmark of companies based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers.

Of the nine airlines included in this year’s Ratings, Southwest Airlines earned the highest score with a rating of 76%, putting it in 51^st place overall out of 318 companies across 20 industries. Southwest has earned the highest score for airlines every year since the Ratings began in 2011. Overall, the airlines industry averaged a 66% rating in the 2018 Temkin Experience Ratings and tied for 12^th place out of 20 industries. The average rating of the industry is unchanged from 2017.

The ratings of all airlines in the 2018 Temkin Experience Ratings are as follows:

Southwest Airlines: 76%
Alaska Airlines: 74%
JetBlue Airlines: 70%
Virgin America: 70%
Delta Airlines: 64%
United Airlines: 63%
American Airlines: 62%
ExpressJet: 59%
Spirit Airlines: 45%

“Southwest Airlines continues to set the pace for customer experience in the airline industry, but Alaska Airlines is closing the gap,” states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.

Alaska Airlines’ customer experience score improved the most over the previous year, gaining six percentage-points. Spirit Airlines‘ score, on the other hand, declined the most, dropping five points.

Aviation

No More Jet Airways. Supreme Court Says “No Choice”, Orders Liquidation

Jet Airways was once one of India’s leading airlines, known for its service and extensive network. Founded in 1993, it served millions of passengers, connecting cities across India and international destinations.

However, since grounding its flights in April 2019, Jet Airways has struggled to navigate financial turbulence, leading to years of efforts to revive the airline and return it to the skies.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court ordered the liquidation of Jet Airways, citing “no choice” but to take this decisive step after the resolution plan failed to meet creditor obligations. The court invoked its extraordinary powers under Article 142, which allows it to make orders for “complete justice” in any case, overriding previous tribunal rulings.

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The Jalan-Kalrock Consortium (JKC), which had won the bid to revive Jet, faced criticism for not fulfilling payment commitments to creditors, which included major banks like the State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank.

The Supreme Court’s ruling pointed to “peculiar and alarming” issues surrounding the resolution plan’s implementation, leading to its conclusion that liquidation was the only feasible outcome.

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Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, alongside Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, emphasized that while liquidation should be a last resort, it was necessary as the resolution plan was “no longer capable of implementation.”

In line with this decision, the court ordered that the ₹200 crore already infused by JKC be forfeited and directed the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in Mumbai to appoint a liquidator to oversee the process.

JKC, a partnership between Murari Jalan, a UAE-based Indian entrepreneur, and Florian Fritsch, a Jet shareholder through Kalrock Capital Partners Limited, had taken ownership of Jet Airways two years after it was grounded. The consortium’s inability to fulfill its financial obligations has now led to this final verdict, marking the end of an era for Jet Airways in India.