U.S. airlines took a beating in early 2018 amid several high-profile clashes with disgruntled passengers, and they appear to have responded accordingly.
Complaints lodged against major U.S. air carriers hit a five-month low of 635 incidents in October, the most-recent reporting period available, and were down roughly 12 percent on a per-passenger basis when compared to the same 31-day span in 2017.
The declines came following a flurry of disputes that crested in April 2017 when security personnel dragged a passenger off an over-booked United Airlines flight, an incident that generated international headlines and forced many carriers to recast customer service policies.
Some 34.3 percent of the U.S. airline complaints fielded between Oct. 2017 and Oct. 2018 involved flight cancellations, delays or deviations from a carrier's schedule, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was off about a percentage point from 2017, when 35 percent of complaints filed against U.S. air carriers involved issues with flight times.