Rental cars: Have you noticed that you’re happier?

Customers who rent cars at the airport are happier with the experience, a new survey shows, and they have a new favorite rental car provider.

Consumer satisfaction increased from 2010 and is nearly as high as it was in 2006, according to a J.D. Power & Associates survey released early Tuesday. The business traveler’s contentment surged, up by 15 points; the leisure traveler was up by 3 points.

Ace Rent-a-Car placed first in the satisfaction survey, scoring 793 out of 1,000 points on the satisfaction index. It was followed by Enterprise at 787, National at 768 and Hertz at 761. The industry average was 758.

The rest of the list in descending order: Alamo, Budget, Dollar, Avis, Advantage, Thrifty and Fox.

Customers are asked to rate the rental car companies on pickup and return processes; the car itself; the shuttle bus/van ride to the car rental facility; making a reservation; and costs and fees. More than 12,000 customers gave their opinions in the survey, which ran from January through September.

Stuart Greif, the vice president of the travel practice at J.D. Power, thinks technology may be able to improve customer satisfaction even more; it could, he said, tell customers how long they might have to wait for their shuttle to the rental car counter or communicate the fuel level in the gas tank to the company so customers aren’t held up by companies that have to check manually or, worse, companies that require a receipt that a customer may or may not have to prove fuel was purchased.