Ask a dozen people who fly every month which airline they dread most, and you’ll get a dozen different answers wrapped around the same handful of names. Some gripe about lost bags. Others bring up hold times that stretch past an hour, or fees that seem to multiply the moment you click “confirm.” When you line up the actual complaint data, survey results, and operational scorecards from the past year, a pattern starts to emerge, and it’s not exactly flattering for a few household names in American and European aviation.
The following rundown pulls from federal complaint filings, industry scorecards, and passenger satisfaction research published between 2024 and 2026. It’s not just anecdote. It’s what the numbers, and the people who fly the most, actually say.
American Airlines tops the least-favorite list
American Airlines shows up at or near the bottom of nearly every ranking that matters right now. American Airlines came in dead last in a passenger dissatisfaction ranking, with travelers rating the carrier a dismal 2.9 out of 10. That’s not a fluke result from one survey either. The Wall Street Journal’s 2025 airline scorecard, which relies almost entirely on Department of Transportation operational data rather than opinion polls, tells a similar story.
American Airlines and Frontier Airlines tied for last place, with American posting the highest cancellation rate among the airlines ranked at 2.2%, up significantly from the prior year. The highest American ranked in any single category was sixth out of nine airlines, for extreme delays, and the airline blamed its poor performance partly on weather and other disruptions outside its control. Frequent flyers describe long hold times and unhelpful support after cancellations, which lines up with what the raw numbers show.
Frontier Airlines and the fee fatigue factor
Frontier’s problem isn’t really about comfort. It’s about complaints, plain and simple, and the numbers back that up year after year. Frontier again had the worst ratio of complaints to boarded passengers, with a complaint ratio of 23.3 per 100,000 passengers, more than 10 points higher than the next worst airline, Spirit, at 12.8.
The frustration tends to center on unexpected charges rather than the base fare itself. Frontier Airlines, the U.S. budget carrier known for rock-bottom fares and strict add-on pricing, earned a low score dragged down by poor passenger reviews and frequent online complaint searches, while many travelers accept its no-frills model but others feel caught off-guard by unexpected fees. On top of that, Frontier’s second bid for struggling Spirit Airlines was rejected in February and its longtime chief executive was suddenly replaced in December, adding some corporate turbulence to an already rocky year.
United Airlines: size amplifies every problem
United isn’t the worst on paper, but it’s consistently in the conversation when frequent flyers vent. Part of that comes down to sheer scale. United Airlines ranks third on a recent dissatisfaction index, and despite improvements in its fleet and operations, United’s size amplifies every problem, with a high number of customer complaint searches and average review ratings of 3.3 out of 10.
Baggage handling is a specific sore spot. United Airlines ranked sixth in the WSJ scorecard, largely because of its poor performance in baggage handling, with a mishandled bag rate of 7.07 per 1,000, well above the industry average, and tracking technology that failed to deliver better results. For a carrier that flies as many people as United does, even a modest failure rate translates into a lot of frustrated travelers standing at baggage claim.
Spirit Airlines: cheap fares, costly frustrations
Spirit has long carried a reputation as the airline people love to complain about, even if they keep booking it for the price. Spirit had the second highest complaint ratio among major carriers, at 12.8 per 100,000 passengers, trailing only Frontier. That’s consistent with what frequent flyers report anecdotally about the no-frills experience.
Interestingly, 2025 brought a bit of a turnaround worth noting, even amid financial trouble. Despite its reputation for no-frills service and ongoing financial struggles, Spirit Airlines saw the biggest year-over-year improvement, cutting its cancellation rate to 1.42%, down from its 2024 high, and jumping to fourth place in on-time arrivals. It’s a reminder that “least favorite” rankings aren’t frozen in time. Even the most maligned carriers can claw back some credibility.
Wizz Air: Europe’s most complained-about carrier
Cross the Atlantic and the complaints shift in flavor but not in intensity. Wizz Air, the Hungarian low-cost carrier that has expanded aggressively across Europe, draws consistent criticism from the flyers who use it most. Wizz Air operates on a strict budget model, offering cheap fares across Europe but facing frequent complaints about punctuality and extra fees, and travelers often report difficulty contacting customer service after flight disruptions.
Volume matters here too. Wizz Air carries around 63 million passengers with just a handful of fans, earning a low rating and one of the worst reputations in Europe. For a carrier that has built its entire brand around ultra-low fares, the tradeoff for many travelers seems to be reliability and responsiveness when something goes wrong.
British Airways: when premium image doesn’t match reality
British Airways occupies an unusual spot on these lists. It’s not a budget carrier, and it doesn’t compete on rock-bottom fares, yet frequent flyers still rank it surprisingly low for satisfaction. British Airways once stood for class and comfort but has been slipping in satisfaction ratings, affected by high lost-baggage search interest and service complaints, with passengers saying the airline’s premium image no longer matches the experience on board.
Baggage seems to be the recurring theme. British Airways now leads the world in lost luggage complaints, according to one recent global survey. For an airline that historically traded on polish and reliability, that particular reputation is a tough one to shake.
Air France and the pattern of inconsistent communication
Air France lands in a middle tier of dissatisfaction, which is almost its own kind of problem. The airline scores well on paper for comfort but still frustrates the people who fly it regularly. Air France places fourth on a dissatisfaction index, and its relatively high Skytrax score of 4 out of 5 couldn’t offset frequent lost-baggage complaints and 11 recorded incidents, with passengers often citing inconsistent customer care and communication gaps during disruptions.
It’s a useful example of how a decent overall product rating and genuine passenger frustration can coexist. Comfortable seats and solid amenities matter less to a frequent flyer stuck at a customer service desk during a delay with no clear answers. Communication, or the lack of it, tends to be what people remember.
What the complaint data actually shows
Step back from individual airlines and the bigger picture is just as telling. Complaints against U.S. airlines increased by nearly 9% in 2024, even though the volume of passengers increased by only 4% compared with 2023. That gap between passenger growth and complaint growth suggests something more than simple volume is at play.
The raw totals back that up. Total airline complaints hit 89,094 in 2024, the second-highest level ever, behind the 102,550 complaints filed in 2020. Delays haven’t helped the mood either. Airlines in 2024 experienced 437 tarmac delays of more than three hours on domestic flights, up from 289 such delays on domestic flights in 2023, the most in one year since the Tarmac Delay Rule took effect in 2010.
The airlines frequent flyers actually praise
Every least-favorite list needs a counterpoint, and the data offers a clear one. Southwest has quietly become the carrier that frequent flyers complain about the least, which is notable given how much criticism the airline absorbed after its 2022 holiday meltdown. The top three airlines with the fewest customer complaints include Southwest, Alaska and Hawaiian.
The scorecards agree. Southwest Airlines topped the 2025 airline rankings with the fewest complaints and a 0.84% cancellation rate, ending Delta’s four-year streak at the top. Southwest had the best complaint ratio at 1.5 per 100,000 passengers, followed by Alaska at 2.6 and Hawaiian at 3.8. Delta, meanwhile, slipped after absorbing lingering fallout. The Journal noted that Delta’s 2024 summer system outage that caused widespread flight disruptions weighed heavily on its 2025 performance.
Final thoughts
What stands out across all of this data isn’t really a single villain airline. It’s a pattern. The carriers that draw the most frustration from frequent flyers tend to share a few traits: inconsistent communication during disruptions, baggage systems that don’t quite keep pace with passenger volume, and fee structures that feel like a moving target.
None of this means you should avoid American, Frontier, United, or Wizz Air entirely. Plenty of people fly them without incident every single day. Still, if you’re the type who tracks these things before booking, the complaint ratios and satisfaction scores from the past couple of years give you a pretty honest starting point, one built on actual passenger experience rather than guesswork.
