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Dive Brief:
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Airline customers who fly economy report the most satisfaction with Southwest Airlines than any other major North American airline, according to a J.D. Power report released last week. J.D. Power surveyed over 10,200 passengers between March 2024 and March 2025.
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JetBlue Airlines led satisfaction among first-class and business customers, while Delta Air Lines led among customers who fly premium economy.
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People skills is a common denominator among these three airlines, according to Michael Taylor, senior managing director of travel, hospitality, retail and customer service at J.D. Power. “One of the bigger swing factors post pandemic has been people skills at these airlines,” Taylor told CX Dive.
Dive Insight:
Airline staff are crucial to providing customers with a satisfying experience.
“Really this comes down to: How can your airline make people feel like you value them?” Taylor said. “And you can't do that with the aircraft, necessarily. You do that with people.”
Southwest Airlines has long hired for attitude, Taylor said. The airline lets staff’s personalities show through.
“They have personable people that go off script and tell jokes and so does the pilot,” Taylor said. “They make you feel like, ‘Oh, these are real people, not just automatons.’”
JetBlue and Delta, on the other hand, have invested “tens of millions of dollars” training people to be friendly and interactive, according to Taylor.
Delta uses technology to interact with passengers. Flight attendants will use handhelds to drill down into the details of a customer in any seat, including name, history, complaints made in the past, and any kind of special requests made on prior flights. Delta then asks flight attendants to interact with a handful of passengers on every trip.
This kind of interaction boosts satisfaction. Across the economy and basic economy segment, positive experiences with staff grew customer satisfaction by about 1% on J.D. Power’s 1,000-point scale, according to the report. But certain interactions — like using a first name — can account for as much as 5%.
“People get kind of drunk on their first name,” Taylor said. “In our data, we asked various things that happened in the flight. If you get a free alcoholic drink, it's worth about 50 satisfaction points. Someone from the airline uses your first name: 49 points. You being called your first name by a flight attendant is like taking a shot of whiskey.”