Those who travel often probably have a favorite airline. This loyalty could be due to what available flights a carrier offers from their home airport, lounge locations, frequent flyer program perks, or other amenities offered. But, what domestic carrier is objectively the best… and how would one go about measuring that? Well, the folks at WalletHub recently took a shot at answering those questions — and their results could be a bit controversial.
Before we get to the winners (one of which I did indeed spoil in my headline), let’s look at the methodology. As WalletHub highlights, they look at 14 metrics across four categories — with a point value being assigned to each metric for a total of 100 possible points. Those four main categories were:
- Baggage and Departures
- Animal Incidents
- In-flight comfort and cost
- Safety
The Baggage and Departures category included factors such as canceled flights, delays, mishandled baggage reports, and denied boardings. As you’d expect, the Animal Related Incidents category considered reports of lost, injured, or deceased pets. Next, In-Flight Comfort and Cost considered leg room, entertainment options, WiFi availability, complimentary refreshments, and (of course) price. Finally, Safety is also self-explanatory, but deducted points for airline passager fatalies, injuries, and other incidents. Although, this category also factored in the average age of each carrier’s fleet.
With that out of the way, let’s get to the rankings. Overall, the highest scorer with 69.12 was Spirit Airlines. They were followed by Skywest Airlines (which is a regional carrier that partners with various major airlines) with 68.08 points. My personal favorite Delta placed third with 64.24 while JetBlue and Southwest Airlines rounded out the top five with scores of 63.38 and 62.19 respectively.
Meanwhile, another regional airline/partner Envoy Air was last among the carriers considered (scoring just 38.56). That said, American Airlines was the lowest of the major players with a score of 45.81. Notably, another one of my go-to airlines, Allegiant, was not ranked.
So how can the airline that everyone seems to complain about be the “Best Airline” overall? Well, that’s where the Price part of this rubrick really lifted Spirit as it scored 8.89 of 10 possible points. By comparison, Delta scored just over one single point in this category. To be fair, though, Spirit also had a strong showing in terms of canceled flights (first place), delays (second to Delta), and all of the Safety sections (tied for first or close enough). I’ll also point out that, while several of these categories were worth between four and 10 points, the factors in which Spirit is known to fall short — such as entertainment options, WiFi, and refreshments — were only worth one point each.
Having looked at all of these factors, while I can appreciate WalletHub’s efforts here, if anything, I think this report just shows how difficult it is to quantify what makes an airline “the best.” Surely, for those looking for a deal, Spirit could be a top pick. However, those willing to pay a bit more for more included amenities may prefer a different carrier. Plus, routing options and destinations seemingly weren’t even a part of this study yet may be the deciding factor for many flyers.
Alas, finding your favorite airline may take a bit more than reading charts. Instead, you’ll really need to fly them to discover what aspects you like and which you don’t. Of course, as a certain directionally-named airline has shown us, sometimes your loyalty may even be up for grabs should a carrier change many of things you luv loved about them. So, search around, do your research, and try out a few different options before you settle on what the best domestic airline is for you.