January 19th, 2023, Joshua Kennedy
Airlines across the US experienced a wave of cancellations, and flight delays after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) experienced a system outage on 11 January 2023. Despite systems being restored in some hours, many airlines continued to experience delays due to ongoing congestion.
Following the FAA system outage, how has the Buzz score for major airlines in the US been impacted?
Buzz score measures if customers have heard something positive about the brand (whether in the news, through advertising, or talking to friends and family) in the past two weeks.
According to YouGov BrandIndex - which tracks consumer sentiment towards thousands of brands daily - major airline carriers like Allegiant Air, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Spirit Airlines, and United Airlines saw their Buzz scores decline in the days following the outage.
Low-cost airline, Allegiant Air, went from a net score of 3 on 11 January to -2 on 16 January, showing a decrease of almost 5 points in the week following the outage.
American Airlines and Delta Air Lines performed similarly over the same period. American Airlines’ Buzz score dropped from a net score of 7 on 11 January to a net score of 6 on 16 January. Delta Airlines saw its Buzz score go from 10 to a lower net score of 3 on 16 January.
New York-based airline JetBlue and the Chicago-based flyer United Airlines, both had a Buzz score of 8 on the day of the system failure. By 16 January, JetBlue (4) and United Airlines (2), both saw a drop in Buzz scores.
According to YouGov data, Spirit Airlines - already in negative territory - saw its Buzz score improve marginally, going from a net score of -3 on 11 February to a net score of -1 on 16 February.
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Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. All Buzz scores are based on the question: “Over the PAST TWO WEEKS, which of the following airlines have you heard something POSITIVE about (whether in the news, through advertising, or talking to friends and family)? / Now which of the following have you heard something NEGATIVE about over the PAST TWO WEEKS?”
Scores are based on an average daily sample size of 211 US-based adults between 8 January 2023 and 16 January 2023. Figures are based on a 3-day moving average. Learn more about BrandIndex.