The Wall Street Journal has a great article on airline performance in 2009, including a ranking of the nine major airlines in five categories:

• On-time arrivals (percentage of flights arriving on-time)
• Canceled flights (percentage of flights canceled)
• Mishandled luggage (mishandled bag reports per 1,000 passengers)
• Consumer complaints (reports per million passengers)
• Bumped passengers (bumped passengers per 10,000)

Here is an overall ranking of the airlines, based on their average ranking in the five categories:

1. Southwest (3.2)
2. Air Tran (3.4)
3. Jet Blue (4.0)
4. Continental (4.4)
5. Alaska Air (5.0)
6. U.S. Air (5.8)
7. Delta (6.0)
8. United (6.2)
9. American (7.0)