What is Your Favorite Airline Doing Well?

Airlines are bumping passengers less heading into the hectic holiday travel season.

According to the Department of Transportation's (DOT) latest Air Travel Consumer Report, the 12 largest carriers involuntarily denied boarding to 2,745 travelers during the three-month period from July through September.

The record-low levels equate to just 0.15 passengers out of every 10,000, a dramatic dropoff from the nearly 12,000 passengers (0.69 per 10,000) bumped in the third quarter of 2016.

The encouraging mark also beat out the previous record low for a quarter of 0.44 per 10,000.

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Delta Air Lines, Virgin, JetBlue and United Airlines fared the best when it came to keeping passengers in their original seats. United's performance is notable given the airline's infamous bumping incident in April, which prompted airlines to alter their policies and increase compensation.

Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines and Southwest Airlines bumped passengers the most often during the third quarter.

The downward trend is excellent news for air travelers since one in five (20.7 percent) believe no amount of money makes up for being bumped.

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Major carriers arrived on time 83.6 percent of the time in September, up considerably from 77.1 percent the previous month. However, at least eight domestic flights experienced tarmac delays exceeding three hours over the course of the month.

DOT is also investigating an international flight that was delayed for more than four hours on the tarmac in September.

Airlines even improved their rate of mishandled bags, reporting just 1.99 botched efforts for every 1,000 passengers this past September.

The industry's positive trend as a whole is reflected in customer satisfaction, which reached its highest level ever earlier this year, according to a J.D. Power study.

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