Customer sentiment towards Ship Cleanliness, Staff Attitude and Room, all top five drivers of customer satisfaction, rose by 18%-20% over the last six months. Staff Knowledge and On-Ship Technology were also up 13% and 10% respectively. 

The cruise has been investing in its ships and services, including the rollout of facial recognition software for faster check-in in early 2022. Meanwhile, parent company Carnival Corporation & plc, started rolling out faster internet powered by SpaceX's Starlink across all of its brands in December 2022.

“I would go on a cruise with this cruise line again in the future. They have lots of terrific offerings in terms of length/duration of cruise, destinations, and price points. The staff are friendly and very helpful and courteous,” one Holland America Line customer told HundredX.

Another excited customer said, “Next month I am going on a Smooth Jazz theme Cruise on Holland America. I am so excited!!! All Adult guest! No children! Wonderful atmosphere!!! Top Notch Entertainment!!!” 

HundredX measures sentiment towards a driver of customer satisfaction as the percentage of customers who view a factor as a reason they liked the brand or product minus the percentage who see the same factor as a negative.

While cruise lines seemingly benefited from holiday travels, airlines were a mixed bag. Harsh winter weather and scheduling technology issues in the days around Christmas led to thousands of flight cancellations across the U.S. The holiday travel disruption, the worst the U.S. has seen in years, cost some airlines hundreds of millions of dollars and tarnished their reputations.

Travel Intent for the Airline industry fell by about 1% in December vs. November, and moderated further by about 0.3% in January. The industry decline was largely driven by Southwest, which was the only major US airline to see a decline in Purchase Intent in January. While every airline had to ground planes due to the poor holiday weather, additional scheduling problems forced Southwest to cancel most of its flights before the holidays, resulting in more than 16,700 canceled flights and Q4 pre-tax loss of $800 million.

Southwest had the highest Travel Intent of the largest US-based airlines prior to the holidays. Purchase Intent for JetBlue rose by the most in January (+4%), followed by Delta (+3%). It remains to be seen whether these shifts will persist through 2023 or efforts by Southwest will lead it to recover to its prior leading position. Southwest plans to spend $1.3 billion in 2023 to maintain and enhance its technologies. In a recent interview with Reuters, Chief Information Officer Lauren Woods said Southwest had already rolled out an upgrade to its scheduling software and plans to update it again several more times this year. 

For Airlines, we mostly looked at the data on a trailing one-month (T1M) basis (vs. typically on a trailing three-month basis) to best capture the immediate outcome of the holiday travel disturbances. 

In January, sentiment towards being On-Time, the 2nd most selected driver of customer satisfaction, was down slightly for the overall Airline group but up the most for Delta, which rose by 11% to 50%, the highest in the industry. United and American also posted significant improvements in sentiment.

Compared to major US competitors, American, Delta, and United canceled fewer flights during the poor holiday weather. Those airlines also capped fares in many locations to help accommodate passengers from other airlines who had their flights canceled. Travel data company OAG revealed Delta closed out 2022 as the most on-time airline. In its 2022 full year earnings report, Delta noted another travel data company, FlightStats, called Delta the most on-time airline from October 2022 through December 2022.

A happy Delta customer told HundredX, “Thanks for getting me home safely and on time over the holidays.” Two others shared in early January right after the holidays, “Delta has always been the airline that I trust.  It has always been accountable for time, baggage, quality employees and safety for me and my family;” and “We fly more frequently with Delta because we trust that we will arrive on time at our destination. Have never had an issue with this airline before.”

Delta, United and American also posted improvements in sentiment towards Flight Options, the 3rd most selected driver of customer satisfaction for December and January, up modestly from 4th or 5th for all of 2022.



“Stranded in LAS, (United) had a flight available for me to purchase to get home in time for Christmas,” someone told HundredX recently. Another person wrote of United, “I have had other airlines cancel my flights and not offer options to be placed on new flights that are convenient. That was not the case with United.”

HundredX will continue monitoring the travel space to watch how economic factors, including recession fears and inflation, impact travel plans throughout 2023. We will also keep a close eye on airlines to see if those that struggled can win back customer trust in the coming months and whether those that saw boosts to Purchase Intent can translate those into permanent share gains.

By analyzing feedback from real customers in real-time, HundredX can better predict which brands customers like the most, plan to travel more with and why.

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