Wichita State associate marketing professor Dean Headley may have put Wichita on the map and in the air, so to speak.

He represented WSU in Washington D.C. on Monday in the 23rd annual Airline Quality Rating news conference.

Headley, along with Purdue University’s Brent Bowen, presents research about the country’s 14 largest airlines each year at the National Press Club.

“We’re not entirely sure how people use [the research],” Headley said, “but this is the type of information they don’t get otherwise.”

The Airline Quality Rating is a formula that assigns numbers to each airline based on 15 different areas of research based on on-time performance, denied boardings, customer complaints, mishandled baggage and more.

Headley and Bowen’s work is the only existing airline rating measured in quantifiable numbers and unbiased research. All of the numbers, Headley said, are crunched right here in Wichita. So why is it such a big deal?

“Simply because we came up with it first,” Headley said. “It takes all of those measureable elements and gives it a number, and we’ve done that every year.”

Of the 14 airlines tested, Virgin America was ranked number one in the AQR, with JetBlue and Air Tran in second and third. In last place was United Airlines. To find the full report, visit www.airlinequalityrating.com.

Following the press conference, news organizations across the U.S. reported the findings. But 23 years ago, Headley’s work was only hitting newsstands right here in Wichita.

“A local television guy pitched the fact that we were doing this paper,” he said.

The information about who researched the AQR reached CNBC and Good Morning America, and before he knew it, Headley was flying out to New York City to talk about his findings.

Twenty-three years later, Headley gives about 20 television and radio interviews a week after the AQR is published.

“All of a sudden, Wichita State is on the map,” he said. “It’s good publicity for the university.”