SEATAC — Alaska Airlines Flight 72 is still 20 minutes away from the airport, but dozens of ramp workers, mechanics, fuelers, cleaners and gate agents are already staged for its arrival.
A large electronic sign above the airport’s Gate C-11 displays the flight’s vital statistics.
It tells the work team that the flight is coming from Juneau, Alaska, to Sea-Tac Airport. It also spells out where the flight goes next.
Most importantly, the screen counts down the minutes remaining until the plane must push back from the gate as Flight 464 bound for Los Angeles.
If Flight 72 is on time, that crew has an hour to deplane the Juneau passengers and their luggage, clean the aircraft, service the bathrooms, add fuel, load new baggage and passengers, and fix any mechanical or electronic issues that have developed on the flight down from southeast Alaska.
Odds are, they will succeed. Sea-Tac-based Alaska ranks first among the nation’s major airlines this year in on-time performance. In unofficial statistics compiled by Portland’s Flightstats.com, 90.12 percent of Alaska’s flights arrived on time last month.
It wasn’t always so. Less than five years ago, Alaska ranked dead last among the 19 airlines tracked by the federal Department of Transportation, with just 69.7 percent of its flights arriving on time.
While Alaska’s reputation for customer service over the years has ranked high, its on-time performance was less than mediocre. The airline ranked seventh among airlines the DOT tracks for on-time performance in the 23 years since the DOT began compiling on-time figures. That seventh ranking is not as good as it appears. Only eight domestic airlines that existed in September 1987 when tracking started are still flying today.
Alaska had excused itself for tardiness by citing its difficult flying conditions in remote parts of Alaska and on the foggy West Coast, said Ben Minicucci, Alaska chief operating officer. But Minicucci said that excuse was just a crutch for substandard performance.
The change of attitude began during an Alaska executives’ retreat in the fall of 2007, Minicucci said.
“We had an awful on-time record. We decided we had to fix it for the sake of our brand and our customers,” he said.
Minicucci and Diana Shaw, Alaska’s managing director of its Sea-Tac hub, took on the challenge of fixing the airline’s broken arrival record.
They began with Seattle — the airline’s biggest base.
“We figured if we could make things happen right first in Seattle, we could help on-time performance throughout the system,” said Shaw.
In addition to monitoring 50 or so tasks each day, the airline takes a longer range look at trends that could affect its on-time record. The airline knows, for instance, that summer is its busiest season, since that’s when tourism crests in Alaska. It plans to increase its daily Sea-Tac flights from the present 114 to 135 in midsummer. That means increasing its work force both on the ramp and on the concourses.
Minicucci thinks the airlines can maintain its position. After all, who would have thought three years ago, he said, that an airline long a basement dweller in the on-time pennant race could move to the top of the standings?
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