The least satisfied flyers live in London, the southeast and the West Midlands while the most satisfied are from the north of England and northern Ireland, according to a new CAA survey.
It is the sixth such survey carried out over the last two years by the Civil Aviation Authority to find out more about consumer behaviour and attitudes to flying.
Overall, airline passenger satisfaction levels have fallen slightly. In total, 82% of UK consumers said they were satisfied with their most recent flight compared with 83% in the same survey in April and 90% in 2016.
Waiting at the airport boarding gate was measured as the low point in the customer pre-flight journey after arriving at the airport, with just 74% satisfied in the last 12 months, while 85% were satisfied with the ease of navigating around the airport and 78% were satisfied with how easy it was to find information to compare airlines and airports.
CAA policy director Tim Johnson said: “Our research helps to build a picture of how people across the UK view flying. Every six months, we track changes in consumer sentiment by region, providing a detailed picture of how well consumers feel they are served.
“While the numbers show a positive story overall, it is important for the industry to continue to improve in areas where consumers are less content, such as complaint handling. This is particularly important given new findings in this survey showing how poor complaint handling can make many consumers think twice about flying with an airline again.”
According to the survey of passengers who have flown in the last 12 months, Londoners came bottom of the table in satisfaction terms, with 76% satisfied with their overall travel experience. In the West Midlands, 80% were satisfied and 81% in the southeast.
Londoners also had below average satisfaction levels about their time on board their flight and value for money.
In addition, satisfaction levels in London showed the most significant drop, from 80% in April to 76% in the autumn, while the West Midlands dropped 1% in the same time period, and the southeast stayed level at 81%.
For passengers in Northern Ireland, 87% were satisfied with their recent flying experience, 86% in the northwest of England and 86% in the northeast.
Although northern Ireland showed the biggest jump in satisfaction levels, from 78% in the spring to 87% in the autumn, the CAA said this region had a low base sample size and said the results should be treated with caution.
The survey is based on online and telephone interviews with 3,538 adults over the age of 18 between September 20 and October 17, 2018, by market research consultancy ComRes.
David Speakman, former chairman of Travel Counsellors, took to Twitter to criticise the survey based on its survey size. He called for the survey to use a bigger sample size of passengers, highlighting that 290 million passengers pass through UK airports each year
Meanwhile, the survey showed the number of passengers satisfied with how their complaint was handled by an airport or airline remained level at 64%, the same as in April 2018. This followed an increase from 53% in October 2017.
The CAA said this was positive news but highlighted the importance for airlines to continue improving their complaints-handling procedures. The survey revealed 60% of people who were dissatisfied or neutral about how their complaint had been dealt with and said it would make them think twice about booking the same airline in future.
Almost half of people who experienced a travel issue did not complain (51%), with the most common reason given that they did not think anything would change as a result of a formal complaint (14%). In total, 37% formally complained in order to get financial compensation.