According to a recent ranking released by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Delta Air Lines was ranked as the best major airline in the US in 2019, while American Airlines ranked as the worst US airline. Overall, WSJ found that customer complaints, flight cancellations and delays were up across the whole industry.
On average, Delta had 36 flight cancellations a day in 2019, compared to American’s 159 a day, according to WSJ. In total, Delta bumped 9 passengers last year, while American bumped 15,000.
In two-hour tarmac delays and mishandled baggage, American mishandled in total 2,600 bags compared to Delta’s 1,345 in 2019. United Airlines, which ranked next to last on the list, had poor rankings in two-hour tarmac delays, mishandled baggage and also canceled flights, but they did better in involuntary bumps. JetBlue (sixth on the list) performed better with the number of canceled flights and involuntary bumps, but also had poor ratings when it came to lost or mishandled luggage.
WSJ also ranked the top 10 airlines according to on-time arrivals – Delta ranked best and Frontier as the worst, mishandled baggage; Allegiant was best at handling baggage and American Airlines the worst, canceled flights (Delta had the least and American had the most) and bumping of passengers (Delta had least and American had the most).
The data on the list was compiled with data from Masflight. Below you can see the full list of the best and worst United States based airlines for 2019.
Best to worst US airlines:
- Delta Air Lines
- Alaska Airlines
- Southwest (tie)
- Allegiant
- Spirit
- JetBlue
- Frontier
- United Airlines
- American Airlines
Related article: Boeing had more cancellations than orders in 2019