AC

A new ranking of U.S. airlines has Southwest taking a back seat. The low-fare giant, which carries more passengers within the U.S. than any other airline, is often at the top of consumer-satisfaction rankings. But a new assessment by fare-tracker Airfarewatchdog.com questions consumers' perceptions. It puts Southwest's overall performance at No. 6 among 10 major U.S. airlines, tied with Delta. Virgin America was No. 1, followed by low-cost carrier JetBlue. Airfarewatchdog based its rankings on varying months of data -- the most recent available at the time of its assessment -- from the Transportation Department and the American Consumer Survey Index. It looked at categories that are particularly important to passengers, such as the percentage of canceled flights and the rate that bags are mishandled. Southwest, for instance, had 75 bumped passengers per 1 million, according to Transportation Department Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports for January to March, the...