The decrease in passenger volume and flights scheduled in the past year has helped improve U.S. airline performance overall, a top researcher said Monday, noting that “wanderlust” will kick in very quickly as soon as the economy rebounds.

Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University in Kansas, told reporters Monday that domestic passenger volume fell 5 percent in 2008, and as a result, fewer flights are being offered.

Headley said the decreases improved overall performance in 2008 — with 17 airlines being given their best marks in four years. Leading the pack was Hawaiian Airlines followed by AirTran Airways and Jet Blue. The legacy airlines — American, Continental, Delta and United — were clustered in the middle of the pack, while regional air carriers filled out the bottom rungs.

Headley’s findings are part of an annual study of airline quality compiled since 1991. The results are based on Transportation Department statistics for airlines that carry at least 1 percent of the passengers who flew domestically last year. The research is sponsored by St. Louis University in Missouri and by Wichita State University in Kansas.

After its worst year for customer complaints in more than a decade in 2007, the airline industry last year flew fewer people but treated them better, arriving on time more often and losing fewer bags. Passengers also were not as apt to be bumped from flights by overbooking, which was a big problem when airlines were running at or over capacity.

Headley said reduced volume translates into greater congestion on planes — and higher prices  — but a leaner and meaner airline industry results from the concentration on fewer flights.

“The flying public, if you can afford it, will find a pleasant existence” on airlines these days — as long as they can find the flight they need, he said.

In a press conference Monday, Headley said the airlines are not “rolling in money” but since they’ve “unbuckled” some of their services, they’ve freed up cash flow. For instance, each airline that has instituted baggage fees has earned about $300 million to $500 million in the past year.

“That’s kind of a drop in the bucket for the billions they deal with, but still they have ways to generate revenue that they haven’t had before. That’s a good thing,” he said.

Headley also noted that the laws of supply and demand have allowed the airlines to cut flights and raise prices, and that too has increased cash flow. He said business fliers are the bread and butter of airline revenues, but leisure fliers are the first to return to the skies after an economic downturn.

“If the economy shows any hint of coming back, I think you’ll see that again,” Headley said. “We have a wandering soul in this country, it’s just part of our DNA I think and people love to go places and the airplane is the quickest and easiest and often times the cheapest. … I think that our wanderlust in this country will kick in once people feel a modicum of economic revitalization.”

Headley said that airlines are optimistic that revenues could be good this year. He noted that when airlines are cash-strapped they put flights on sale and that’s something fliers should keep in mind when booking travel.

As for 2008, the study found consumer complaints dipped from 1.42 per 100,000 passengers in 2007 to 1.15 per 100,000. Southwest Airlines had the best rate, only 0.25 complaints per 100,000 passengers; US Airways had the worst rate, 2.25.

Half of all complaints involved baggage or flight problems such as cancellations, delays or other schedule deviations.

The average on-time performance last year was 3 percentage points better than the year before, yet nearly one-quarter of all flights were late. The study said 12 airlines improved from the previous year, but only three airlines had better than an 80 percent on-time rate: Hawaiian, 90 percent; Southwest, 80.5 percent; and US Airways, 80.1 percent.

American, the nation’s largest air carrier as measured by passengers flown the most miles, had the worst record, arriving on time only 69.8 percent of the time.

The overall rate of passengers denied boardings — usually bumps due to overbooking — dipped slightly, from 1.14 per 10,000 passengers to 1.1 in 2008. Jet Blue had the lowest rate for the second year in a row, 0.01 per 10,000 passengers; Atlantic Southeast Airlines had the highest rate, 3.89.

All the airlines did a better job handling passengers’ baggage. The mishandled baggage rate fell from 7.01 bags per 1,000 passengers in 2007 to 5.19 bags in 2008.

AirTran did the best job, with 2.87 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers; American Eagle Airlines did the worst, at 9.89.

Aviation experts said the air transport system had reached capacity in 2007, its busiest year for travel since before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The aviation system suffered close to a meltdown as domestic carriers recorded 770 million passengers.

In 2008, 741 million passengers flew, and airlines reported weak travel demand through the first quarter of this year.

“We’re now in a time when the system is constricting and performing reasonably well,” Headley said. He urged Congress to take advantage of this “breathing room” to move forward on a system that would replace decades-old radar technology with satellite-based technology.

That new system is forecast to increase air transportation system capacity by enabling planes to fly closer together and more directly to their destinations, saving time and fuel.

“It’s crazy to think we can keep going the way we were going with the volume of planes we have in the air,” Headley said.

(Source: Fox News / Associated Press)