bumped people, lost bags...

the airlines are having a lot of problems these days, but the flying public has become more complacent. read on ...

Airline hassles are on the rise: More passengers found themselves bumped, their flights delayed or their bags lost last year than in 2005 ... The report does not include recent weather-related flight delays such as the ones that left JetBlue and United Airlines planes idling for hours on taxiways.

“They just don’t get it yet,” said Dean Headley, an associate professor at Wichita State University who co-authored the study with Brent D. Bowen of the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Industry spokesman David Castelveter blamed the majority of delays on bad weather. Making matters worse, he said, more planes will be in the air in coming years and the air traffic control system cannot handle the growth.

Southwest had the lowest number of complaints in 2006, 0.18 per 100,000 passengers. United and US Airways tied for the most, 1.36 per 100,000 passenger.

Hawaiian Airlines had the best on-time performance (93.8 percent) for 2006, followed by Frontier Airlines (80.7 percent) and Southwest (80.2 percent). Atlantic Southeast Airlines had the worst on-time performance (66 percent).

Last year, for every 1,000 passengers, 6.50 bags were lost, stolen or damaged, compared with 6.06 in 2005. Hawaiian had the best baggage handling performance; Atlantic Southeast the worst.

The increase in lost bags comes as at least one domestic carrier — Spirit Airlines — plans a new fee for passengers who check their bags. Come June, Spirit will charge $5 each for one or two checked bags if the ticket was booked online and $10 each for passengers who do not book online.

“It just seems to me that consumer expectations have been lowered,” Headley said, explaining that at the end of the 1990s and in 2000 the numbers of complaints were much higher, even though problems with baggage and delays were less frequent.

at least it isn't 'bumped bags, lost people' -- for the full story, go here.