Customer satisfaction is at its lowest point in three years. JetBlue has the most satisfied customers overall, not just among economy airlines but of all airlines, and also ranks highest among low-cost carriers.

Alaska Airlines and Continental Airlines tie for highest ranking among more traditional airlines, Continental repeating for the third consecutive year.

Alaska Airlines performs particularly well in five of seven measures: aircraft; boarding/deplaning/baggage; check-in; flight crew and reservation, while Continental performs well in the cost and fees measure.

92% of passengers are making their reservations online. 66% of all reservations are made online, up tremendously from only 15% in 2007. 22% of passengers now say they choose an airline because of its rewards program, up from 14% last year.

The company has released charts of ratings of traditional carriers and low-cost airlines.

An article in FlightGlobal covers airline IT efforts to improve the customer's self-service experience. Self-service is important as airlines try to minimize cost. And some of the more computer literate among us would rather interact directly with the computer than with a person whose job is to be an intermediary beteen us and the computer. But the people beind the booking desk often have the power to make exceptions to rules, and to dispense upgrades and discounts that web sites and kiosks won't give you. Kiosks maximize the effectiveness of booking staff by taking care of the routine traffic, so that the booking staff can handle the hard stuff.