Press Release

Southwest Still at the Top in VocaLabs Study of Airline Customer Service

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 19, 2005--Vocal Laboratories (www.vocalabs.com) today announced the results of its fourth SectorPulse study on the quality of customer service among major US Airlines.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) with its reputation for quality customer care earns another "A" for Caller Satisfaction, and in fact Southwest's satisfaction scores are among the highest across all industries, not just airlines. Still, the airline dropped from an "A" to a "C" in Call Completion, a measure of the percentage of customers who had to call back more than once to complete their business.

Northwest (Nasdaq:NWAC) earned an "A" in Caller Satisfaction, up from a "B" six months ago, and remained at a "B" in Call Completion.

Both American (NYSE:AMR) and United (OTCBB:UAL.OB) earned "B" grades in Caller Satisfaction, unchanged from the last report. Both companies also earned "C's" in Call Completion, which was down from a "B" at American, and down from an "A" at United.

Delta (NYSE:DAL) remains at a "C" in Caller Satisfaction, but improved to a "B" in Call Completion, up from a "C".

VocaLabs CEO Peter Leppik comments: "The most striking industry trend in this report is the drop in Call Completion scores. Repeat calls to complete a single transaction are costly to the carriers and frustrating to consumers. Much of the data was collected before the recent hurricanes, which suggests that those natural disasters are not the cause of this shift. More likely, continuing financial pressures on airlines are resulting in staffing cutbacks that cause longer times on hold, prompting customers to hang up and call again later. Both Northwest and Delta filed for chapter 11 reorganization, after our data collection was essentially complete, and it will be interesting to see if they will be able to sustain their gains in service quality."

To learn more, visit www.vocalabs.com. An Executive Summary and complete SectorPulse data reports are available by subscription. Contact Rick Rappe' at rrappe@vocalabs.com

About SectorPulse Airlines

VocaLabs' SectorPulse reports compare the customer service quality for different companies in the same industry, using data and call recordings from the companies' customers. VocaLabs has recruited over 92,000 individuals to provide feedback on customer service experiences, from which we drew the participants for this study. VocaLabs panelists who are customers of one of the companies included in this study were asked to participate by having their customer service calls tracked and completing surveys before and after the call.

About Vocal Laboratories

Vocal Laboratories delivers statistically reliable feedback on the user friendliness of telephone based customer service whether delivered via traditional call centers or self-serve technology. Clients are end user enterprises, call center consultants, application providers and equipment vendors. Only VocaLabs has the unique methodology to evaluate a customer contact application at any stage of development from prototype through existing services quickly, cost effectively and with maximum accuracy.

Contacts

Vocal Laboratories, Inc., Eden Prairie
Rick Rappe', 952-941-6580 X 205
rrappe@vocalabs.com
www.vocalabs.com