Los Angeles, CA - May 28: Amid a busy getaway travel day for the Memorial Day weekend and the first holiday since coronavirus pandemic restrictions have been relaxed, a crowd of travelers wait in line to check in for their flights at LAX at Delta Airlines, Terminal 2 at LAX Friday, May 28, 2021. Officials say travelers should arrive early for Memorial Day weekend flights. After months of Los Angeles International Airport looking like a ghost town, holiday crowds are back. Were seeing more travelers than weve seen in the last 14 months. We had over 75,000 people come through on Sunday alone to the TSA checkpoints, thats by far a record in 2021 for us, said LAX spokesperson Keith Montgomery. Photo taken in LAX on Friday, May 28, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

U.S. Airline Rankings From the Best to the Worst, See Who Came Out on Top

Crystal Gross January 24, 2023 Travel Leave a comment

Last year, the travel industry was shaky in the U.S. For one, it experienced an abundance of staffing shortages and flight cancellations as the world returned to traveling post-pandemic.

Air lines grappled with the issues, but apparently, some did better than others. Wall Street Journal released its 15th annual scorecard to show who led and who fell behind.

Depending on your own experiences, you may not be surprised to learn Delta Air Lines took home the trophy for least-reported complaints regarding cancellation rates. But the airline’s 2022 on-time arrival rate dropped by 6%, coming in at 81.7 percent compared to 87.9% in 2021 and 83.4% in 2019.

Delta’s Chief Executive Ed Bastian recently said last year was “the most difficult operational year in our history.” But despite having its challenges, Delta still ranked high in almost every other category scored, including having the lowest rate of involuntary bumping and canceled flights, Travel + Leisure reported.

Southwest had a Christmas hiccup that caused a lot of chaos for its passengers around the holidays. But still managed to have fewer overall problems than other carriers last year. The airline had the lowest rate of customer complaints and long tarmac delays. However, it wasn’t the same regarding canceled flights and involuntary bumping.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the same for commercial airline Allegiant Air. The company had the lowest on-time arrival rate of 62.7%. An Allegiant spokeswoman blamed it on a “confluence of factors,” like weather, COVID-19 infections, and staffing shortages.

The same went for JetBlue. The airline faced several challenges and scored low in nearly every category, including delays, cancellations, mishandled baggage, and customer complaints.

On top of that, JetBlue had the most 2-hour-plus tarmac delays across all U.S. carriers and the second-most canceled flights.

JetBlue President Joanna Geraghty released a statement to the WSJ, saying it experienced many issues due to its hub being in the congested metro New York and the surrounding Northeastern area.

American Airlines and some other carriers had baggage issues in 2022. AA saw the highest rate of mishandled bags, with Frontier Airlines having the most complaints of any U.S. airline.

Notably, December’s baggage handling and complaint data weren’t reported at the time of WSJ’s report.