According to the 22nd annual national Airline Quality Rating, AirTran is the best-performing airline of 2011. For the industry as a whole, it was the best performance ever in the 21 years researchers have tracked the performance of airlines.

The rating is conducted annually by researchers Dean Headley of Wichita State University and Brent Bowen of Purdue University. Headley says the study uses objective performance-based data to compare the airlines.

According to the 2012 Airline Quality Rating, AirTran is first, followed by Hawaiian, JetBlue, Frontier andAlaska. Rounding out the top ten are Delta, Southwest, US Airways, SkyWest and American.