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America’s Least Favorite Airline Revealed in New Ranking: Report

The Wall Street Journal‘s new ranking revealed America’s least favorite airline and it’s not what you think. Historically, American fliers have praised some of the low-cost airlines. However, recent studies show one of them didn’t fare so well.

The airline that ranked lowest in a recent study in the Wall Street Journal was actually JetBlue. The outlet released the airline rankings at the end of last month. Last year, JetBlue let some travelers with long delays and many cancelations.

While seeing JetBlue at the bottom of the rankings may be unexpected, the airlines claiming the top spots may also come as a surprise. For instance, Delta Air Lines is in the number one spot with Alaska and Southwest Airlines in the second and third spot, respectively.

The Nine Largest U.S. Airline Rankings in 2021

On January 28, the Wall Street Journal released its list ranking the largest airlines in the country. The airlines are ranked on seven performance-based categories. They include on-time arrivals, canceled flights, extreme delays, tarmac waits longer than two hours, mishandled baggage, passengers being involuntary bumped from flights and customer complaints.

Here are the rankings:

  1. Delta Air Lines
  2. Alaska Airlines
  3. Southwest Airlines
  4. United Airlines
  5. Allegiant Air
  6. American Airlines and Frontier Airlines
  7. Spirit Airlines
  8. JetBlue Airways

According to the research, JetBlue had the highest rate of delays. Furthermore, the airline had the second-lowest amount of on-time arrivals and customer complaints.

However, the results of the study weren’t entirely bad news for JetBlue. According to the ranking, they had the fourth-fewest bumpings for passengers and cancelations. The airline ended 2021 with a total of 1,280 canceled flights. Although, most of these flight cancelations had something to do with COVID-19. Multiple airline companies were affected by this surge in the Omicron variaant.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 wasn’t the only disappointing factor for the major airlines. Both pilot availability and rearranged passenger travel also posed a serious problem.

Delta Air Lines Takes Back the Lead a Year Later

A year ago, Southwest was at the top of the list. But it didn’t take long for Delta Air Lines to reclaim the top spot in Wall Street Journal’s rankings.

Furthermore, Delta took the lead in five of the seven categories from 2021. These categories included the most on-time arrivals, fewer cancelations and delays, fewer complaints, and the least likely to experience bumps.

Next year’s rankings, however, will be a bit more condensed as Frontier and Spirit just signed a massive merger deal. Read more here.