Hawaiian tops the annual Airline Quality Rating

The airline industry has given its best performance in four years, which is good, because just a year ago they earned their worst marks in ten years for passenger complaints. Hawaiian Airlines topped the list of the best out of the 17 airlines that made the list. Next up were AirTran Airways and JetBlue Airways.

The annual Airline Quality Rating looked at the nation's 17 busiest airlines in 2008 and compared them based on their performance in four categories: bumping because of overbooking, on-time performance, mishandled baggage and customer complaints.

The results (with the best at the top):

1. Hawaiian
2. AirTran
3. JetBlue
4. Northwest
5. Alaska
6. Southwest
7. Frontier
8. Continental
9. AMR Corp.'s American
10. US Airways
11. UAL Corp.'s United
12. Delta
13. SkyWest
14. Mesa
15. Comair
16. American Eagle
17. Atlantic Southeast