Source: USA Today
Author: Kitty Bean Yancey

Airline performance, food and service are in a tailspin — worse than they've ever been — according to a survey of 5,277 frequent fliers and travel professionals out this morning.

Today's fliers are "the uncomfortable served the inedible by the indifferent," wrote one participant in the online Zagat air travel survey.

Ratings for every surveyed U.S. airline were down. The survey of frequent fliers has been done every three or four years since 1990 by publishers of the Zagat dining and travel guides.

Top-scoring domestic airlines on Zagat's 30-point scale, reflecting comfort, service and food: Midwest Airlines (21.40) and JetBlue Airways (19.29). They also were 1 and 2 in 2001. Respondents hailed Midwest for "business-class performance for economy cost," says Zagat CEO Tim Zagat; JetBlue's live TV, comfy leather seats and smiling service earned points.

Delays, cancellations and waiting were the No. 1 gripe of 42% of respondents

Big names, including American, United, Delta and US Airways, didn't wing into the 2005 top 10. "Many airlines are in deep trouble, and they're nickel and diming everything — cutting everything they could possibly cut," Zagat says. Fliers "are being treated badly as human beings. ... I've never surveyed an industry where there's this much biting commentary. (Fliers) are really mad."

Delays, cancellations and waiting were the No. 1 gripe of 42% of respondents; cramped seating and crowding vexed 21% the most; poor service was the biggest beef of 13%. In the age of meal cutbacks, food was the area where domestic airlines scored lowest.

International carriers did better on Zagat's scale. Singapore Airlines, tops on many a travel "best" list, repeated at No. 1 with 23.55 points. Other findings:

• Despite a face lift, New York's JFK airport was named worst airport.
• London's Heathrow was voted airport with best facilities for both leisure and business travelers.
• 47% of respondents said an airline's financial or labor problems don't affect their booking decisions.
• Nearly 70% of fliers bought tickets on the Internet (55% via airline websites, 14% on other booking sites). JetBlue's website earned top marks among those of domestic airlines; Virgin Atlantic's was No. 1 for international travel.

The biggest surprise among survey results, available today on zagat.com?

"The fact that websites are considered the best-performing things in the airline industry," Zagat says. "One respondent even wrote: 'It's too bad you can't fly the website.' "