The recent increase came even though the number of overall boardings rose only slightly. The rate, which comes as some carriers are beefing up customer service efforts, may grow even more once the transportation department factors in complaints received during the East Coast snowstorm after Christmas that left thousands of planes grounded and some passengers stranded for days.
“Nobody I know enjoys flying anymore,’’ said Ilene Greenberg of Chestnut Hill, who paid $3,400 to get her son home from Paris after his original flight was canceled due to heavy snows in Europe in December.
Canceled flights, always a major source of irritation, increased 22 percent last year over 2009, according to FlightStats.com, in part due to snowstorms and the massive disruptions from the Icelandic volcano last spring. And now that airlines are filling their planes as full as possible, the ripple effect is even greater.
“We’re seeing load factors the highest we’ve seen them,’’ said airline analyst Darryl Jenkins. “If you have a 90 percent load factor and you cancel a flight and the next flight is 90 percent full, it’s going to take you an additional 10 flights to accommodate the passengers on that one canceled flight.’’
Higher prices also upset passengers. With last year’s fares 9 percent above what they were in 2009, according to the travel website Hotwire.com, and fees for bags, food, extra leg room, and pillows boosting the price even higher, people are bound to speak up, said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the airline trade organization.
“It’s understandable that someone will voice concern when you charge more than you did before,’’ Castelveter said.
Heightened security hasn’t helped either, said Andres Kello, president of AirlineComplaints.org. He said his website’s traffic doubled last year over 2009. Complaints filed with the Transportation Security Administration, which are recorded separately, rose 24 percent from fiscal year 2009 to 2010.
