The New York-based airline is the third-largest carrier at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where it currently offers 37 daily departures to 17 nonstop destinations in the U.S. and the Caribbean. At Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, JetBlue operates 10 daily departures.

Following JetBlue are Southwest Airlines and WestJet in a tie. Southwest Airlines is the largest carrier at Fort Lauderdale airport, followed closely by Miramar-based Spirit Airlines. Spirit was not included in the J.D. Power study because it's a smaller carrier than others in the low-cost sector.

Despite JetBlue's track record for customer satisfaction, Sonkin says it's likely "competition is going to get more and more fierce" among low-cost carriers.

Southwest is the only airline in the 2009 study to demonstrate overall improvement from 2008.

AirTran Airways and Frontier Airlines ranked the lowest among the five low-cost carriers surveyed.

J.D. Power and Associates measures customer satisfaction based on performance in seven areas: cost and fees, flight crew, in-flight services, aircraft, boarding/deplaning/baggage, check-in and reservation.

The results of the study are based on responses from more than 12,900 passengers who flew on major airlines between April 2008 and May 2009.