Most travelers have at some point sworn to never again fly with this or that airline — a long delay or lost luggage can create memories that are not easy to shake off.
Any survey asking customer input on which airline is "worst" or "best" is bound to be highly subjective based on when and how it was conducted. Following the booking system breakdown that left tens of thousands of travelers stranded over the 2022 holiday season, Dallas-based Southwest (LUV) was named "the worst airline of the year" in one rating but scored top points in another.
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The latest rankings come from data analytics company J.D. Power. According to its annual North America Airline Satisfaction Study, passenger satisfaction with airlines has been dropping in general. While that number was at 798 points out of 1,000 for the 2022 study, it fell to 791 for flights that took place between March 2022 and 2023.
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'Planes Are Crowded, Tickets Are Expensive'
The reasons for this, according to the J.D. Power researchers, have largely to do with the staff shortage affecting the entire industry — while demand for travel has been sky-high following the pandemic, many airlines have not been rehiring workers laid off in 2020 fast enough to meet it.
"If yield management were the only metric airlines needed to be successful in the long term, this would be a banner year for the industry because they are operating at peak economic efficiency," Michael Taylor, J.D. Power's travel intelligence lead, said in a press statement. "From the customer perspective, however, that means planes are crowded, tickets are expensive and flight availability is constrained."
Some airlines have been managing this demand better than others. Out of the airlines looked at by J.D. Power, JetBlue (JBLU), Delta Airlines (DAL) and United Airlines (UAL) scored top points for customer satisfaction in the first/business class level. For economy, the top three spots were taken by Southwest (LUV), Delta and JetBlue.
The airlines with the most dissatisfied customers, meanwhile, were budget carriers Spirit (SAVE) and Frontier Airlines. American Airlines (AAL) was the only full-service airline to land in the bottom three for customer satisfaction at the economy level. It was also at the bottom in the first/business class category.
'Leisure Travel Demand' Largely Unaffected, Researchers Say
While low-cost carriers have always advertised a "no frills" model in which passengers can score a cheap deal by forgoing snacks and seat selection, carriers such as Spirit and Frontier scored so lowly this year in some part due to rising prices that leave customers feeling like their basic services are not justified by the prices. According to J.D. Power, satisfaction with cost and fees in the economy class was down 19 points.
Across all flight classes, satisfaction with costs and fees fell by 17 points while satisfaction with food options onboard was one of the only categories that rose by 12 points. According to the researchers, the high rates of dissatisfaction reflect a tough time in the industry in which many need to travel and find the experience worse than they remember — a situation that will hopefully improve as more staff is hired.
"While these drawbacks have not yet put a dent in leisure travel demand, if this trend continues, travelers will reach a breaking point and some airline brands may be damaged," Taylor said.
