Travel Industry

Zagat’s 2009 Airline Survey, covering 16 domestic & 73 international airlines and 30 domestic airports, confirms the decline of air travel, with 33% of respondents saying they’re flying less. In the domestic airline categories, Jetblue, Virgin America and Continental got the highest scores.

Zagat Airline Survey

This is the third annual airline survey done by Zagat. A comparison of this year’s survey with the past two years showed that travelers were taking an average of 19.7 flights per year in 2007, which tanked to 16.3 in 2008 and ended up at 16.6 in 2009.

Comparisons of the relative percentages of business & leisure travel showed that business travel declined from 64% in 2007 to 61% in 2009, while leisure flights gained from 35% to 39% in 2009.

Bookings made by travel agents dropped precariously from 17% in 2007 to 8% in 2009, while bookings made directly through airlines’ websites rose from 60% to 64%. Travel websites showed no change at 15%, while booking through work went up from 2% to 8%.

Virgin America topped the charts for midsize domestic airlines in both the premium & economy class categories, with scores of 24 and 21 respectively, and Virgin Atlantic came in first for international in-flight entertainment.

Jetblue took the awards for best in-flight entertainment and most green airline amongst domestic airlines. Jetblue also topped the large domestic economy class category with a score of 19.

Robin Hayes, executive vice president and chief commercial officer for JetBlue, said that they were excited that “our customers and Zagat’s surveyors have recognized us as their carrier of choice for two years in a row.”

Continental came in first with a score of 21 for large domestic premium class, while Singapore Airlines came in first for both premium and economy class categories under International airlines, with scores of 28 and 24 respectively.  As for the airports, Portland Int’l came in first, while New York’s LaGuardia came in last.

For more information about the survey and to see the full results, visit – www.zagat.com/airline