Delta Climbs to the TOP!

(TRAVPR.COM) GHANA - October 19th, 2011 - Delta Climbs to Top of BTN Air Survey Delta Air Lines for the first time took top honors in the Business Travel News Annual Airline Survey, to be published next week. The 2011 survey shows a significant reshuffling, as mergers, evolving distribution strategies and modified corporate agreements factored into travel buyer perceptions of the five largest domestic airlines.

Fielded from August 16, 2011, to September 7, 2011, the BTN survey asked 406 respondents with a minimum of $500,000 in annual air spend to rate their domestic U.S. airline suppliers in 10 categories on a scale of one (poor) to five (excellent). With an overall 3.14 score, Delta garnered the highest ratings in five of those categories.

Continental Airlines, a six-time winner and highest-ranked carrier in last year's survey, subsequently has been integrating with merger partner United Airlines. The combined entity landed second to Delta and achieved top marks in three categories, perhaps having already harnessed some of the goodwill Continental established in the corporate marketplace.

American Airlines fell from second last year to fourth this year, an indicator of perceptions of declining service. It is unclear to what extent AA's disputes with third-party distributors have impacted its standing in the overall corporate travel marketplace, though its BTN survey score in the distribution channel availability category fell this year to 3 from 3.51 last year.

US Airways, meanwhile, improved to third place from a last-place finish in 2010, perhaps partly resulting from reinvigorated efforts to court corporate business that during the past year resulted in more than 100 new North American accounts. Southwest Airlines, rated along with merger partner AirTran Airways, finished last.

Respondents saw little flexibility from the carrier in structuring preferred airline agreements and reported difficulty in booking some of its airfares through preferred channels. Southwest's prior dominance in the overall price value category collapsed this year, with its rating plummeting to 2.97 from 3.96 in 2010.

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