What airlines are relable?

[mommyceratops]

We have only flown SW in recent years. Now I am looking at going with what has the cheapest? Right now Delta? How relable are they?? NW and others are being considered?

What should I avoid?!

TIA

 

[miss missy]

I always did song which is delta. I have the same ? for Aug

 

[DebbieB]

Northwest and Delta are both still in bankruptcy, but they have resolved their labor problems. I would say they are "reliable".

One thing to consider with Southwest is their liberal change policies, no charge for changes or cancellations (you can reschedule if a non-refundable ticket). The other airlines will hit you with a $50-$100 change fee.

 

[bg4]

reliable - but I digress.

def of reliable from m-w.com

reliable (adjective)
1 : suitable or fit to be relied on : DEPENDABLE
2 : giving the same result on successive trials

So what youi are asking is are all airlines dependable and give the same result each and every time. My answer is Yes and all of them do. For years I would not fly continental because of one bad experience I had (on the ground during bad weather delay) but does that make them unreliable. Absolutely not.

Maybe the on-time record and sadly the accident rate should be indicators, although some airlines are better now than they once were because of mergers etc and this would include Continental.

It is going to be each posters personal preference possibly based on bad experiences like I had. If airlines were not reliable they would not be in business. TWA is a good example. At some point they were considered less than reliable and went bye-bye to AA. At same time SWA and Jet Blue come in and are considered excellent (and low cost too). AirTran has Value Jet lingering over it Jet Blue flies Air Bus which had some accidents.

They are all reliable just as long as they get you there eventually and safely.

This started out as my two cents but definetly went to the two dollar tour.

 

[bicker]

You're correct though: Anecdotal experiences don't constitute a basis on which to evaluate reliability or even quality of service. As a matter of fact, in most things, prices and sales stats are better indicators; a larger business that charges more tends to be better than a smaller business that charges less. That's because people aren't idiots: They're not going to repeatedly pay more for something worse! The variances from that generally involve companies that do a good job selling themselves, thereby making themselves look better to the marketplace than they really are. So the slickest production values, the trendiest image, and the folksiest presentation tend to be the source of some variance from the prices-and-sales metric being a good indicator of reliability and quality.

What this basically boils down to is that in this competitive they're all about the same, in terms of value: You pay less, you get let; you pay more, you get more; but in either case, you're getting pretty much the same amount of value per dollar paid.

 

[mommyceratops]

Ok you got me...

How about I rephrase what airline will not change my ticket 100 times and will most likely be in business in Dec.

 

[gw_lit]

Ok you got me...

How about I rephrase what airline will not change my ticket 100 times and will most likely be in business in Dec.

Southwest

 

[rparmfamily]

Delta, American, United, and Continental are the reliable carriers. Delta has the best product into MCO but it really depends on where you are flying out of and who services your airport.

 

[wdwfamilyinIL]

Ok I am confused yet once again, I know not a big suprise. From reading some replies I get the impression that Delta has solved some of its problems. Did the pilots pass this agreement, or is it just the assumption that they will? I know the closer we get to going, the more nervous I get with all this going on.

 

[rparmfamily]

Ok I am confused yet once again, I know not a big suprise. From reading some replies I get the impression that Delta has solved some of its problems. Did the pilots pass this agreement, or is it just the assumption that they will? I know the closer we get to going, the more nervous I get with all this going on.

wdwfamilyinIL,
Delta's Pilots reached and signed a deal. I would not worry about Delta and I hope you enjoy your flight to MCO.

 

[Brian Noble]

What airlines are reliable? Generally, the ones I'm not flying.

 

[zurgswife]

Delta seems to have the worst record of changing flights and seats.
Personally I stick with SW due to the benefits of change and Cancelation police

 

[maddi]

I have been an avid delta flyer for 10+ years and just this year I'm in the process of changing my dedicated airline. Delta has almost always made a mess of my reservations(I'm a very sloooow learner) if there is a stop over in another city, 4 out of five times we missed our connecting flight due to them(they even left us stranded in the airport overnight last year), terrible when it comes to changing flights and times even on simple non-stop flights, and almost everytime we have flown, they are always late in arriving and/or departing. Personally, I think they have went down hill with each passing year. (can you tell, I wouldn't make a good spokesperson for Delta )

 

[gypsydoodlebug]

Everyone has their opinions, and each carrier has a dozen horror stories.

Generally, I've only had three bad experiences with Southwest (and I travel at least monthly w/ them for business). I just checked my account, and that's in 34 flights (68 one-ways) in 2 years!! I've been late for appts. only twice, and once I had a toddler who kicked my seat the whole way, and when I went to change seats, the flight att. wouldn't help me find a new seat, but that's it.

Also, I've flown USAir only three times in the last 18 mos. via LGA and each flight was late by, like, three hours. I seriously wanted to poke my eye out w/ a sharp stick!! Don't what was up with that.

My three Delta flights were on-time, if nothing special.

All in all, I prefer SWA. But it's "customer's choice!!"

 

[calie_j]

American has changed one of my flights 3 times in 5 weeks and they still have 4 months to keep changing them over and over again I have 4 flights to mess with since it's a connecting flight in Chicago.

United last summer only made one change for our return flight which made our layover 3 hours instead of 1. So 1 change out of 4 flights, connecting again, not bad comparatively speaking.

Loved Suncountry, any changes were minor since I don't remember them, 15 minutes or less. Don't remember any changes on Northwest either but it's been years since we've flown on them and the schedule changes seem to be becoming an increasing problem recently.

I agree you're gonna get alot of experiences that will include all airlines so it would be very hard to pick based on this post.

Calie

 

[miss missy]

I went with Delta myself for my Aug trip. They usually change flight times by an hr here and there, but other than that... gets me where I am going ok.