Report: The Best and Worst Airlines in America

The U.S. airline industry can once again be called the “friendly skies” judging from a report that measures customer satisfaction.

The Travel Study 2022-2023 from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) indicates that passenger satisfaction has risen across several key customer experience benchmarks, including the quality of mobile apps, website satisfaction, cleanliness of the cabin and lavatory, and more.

The report, which covers customer satisfaction results from interviews with 10,588 customers taken from April 2022 to March 2023, scores the major U.S. airlines on a 100-point scale.

The Best and Worst Airlines for Customer Satisfaction Are …

Alaska Airlines comes in #1 regarding customer satisfaction with an ACSI score of 81. The airline improved by 8% compared to last year’s rankings. At the bottom of the list is Spirit Airlines with an ACSI score of 64.

Here are some key findings in the report:

• Overall passenger satisfaction with the airline industry increased by 1% year over year to an ACSI score of 76.
• Southwest Airlines, whose customers experienced mass cancellations in December 2022, still came in second place, tying American Airlines at 78. Both carriers saw a 1% improvement in their scores.
• The majority of the carriers saw their scores improve except Delta Air Lines (down 1%) and JetBlue Airways (down 4%).

“The outlook for the coming months may be even rosier, as passenger satisfaction rebounded substantially in February, regaining about two-thirds of the ground lost from the end of 2022,” according to an ACSI news release.

Airlines	2023 Score	% Change
Alaska Airlines	81	8%
American Airlines	78	1%
Southwest Airlines	78	1%
United Airlines	77	0%
Delta Air Lines	76	-1%
JetBlue Airways	76	-4%
Allegiant Air	75	7%
All Others	72	1%
Frontier Airlines	67	2%
Spirit Airlines	64	2%
All Airlines (Average)	76	1%

Looking for Cheap Flights Online? Read This.

The ACSI study doesn’t measure satisfaction with price, though many travelers consider that to be the number one factor when deciding which airline to fly.

Thanks to the internet, you can find some good travel deals online. So how does money expert Clark Howard fly for cheap? He typically uses a combination of travel alerts from airlines and fare sites such as Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) and Google Flights.

There are plenty of travel sites out there, but here’s a word of caution: If you haven’t heard of the site or know anyone who’s booked on it, be extremely careful, says Clark. Just because it comes up on Google doesn’t mean it’s a safe site.

Before you book on a travel site you’ve never heard of, check out Clark’s tips on how to avoid fake travel sites.

“I need for you to be really, really cautious and careful when you do any kind of search for travel deals using any search engine,” says Clark.

Do you agree with these airline rankings? Tell us which airlines are your most and least favorite in our Clark.com Community!

Want more money-saving travel tips? Read our guide on how to save with Google Flights.