Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Frontier and Spirit, two ultra-low-cost airlines, racked up the most complaints per passenger last year. (Photo by Joe Raedle) A irline passengers in the U.S.
were not happy campers in 2023. Complaints against domestic airlines jumped by nearly 29%—hitting a new record—despite passenger volume increasing by only 11% compared to 2022, according to a new report by the U.S.
PIRG Education Fund, the consumer advocacy organization’s report, based on data released by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) last Friday.
Through its online complaints and comments portal , the agency’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection (OACP) received an estimated 61,233 complaints against U.S. airlines last year, breaking the previous record of 47,591 in 2022.
Over the past three years, complaints made up an average of 91% of consumer submissions, with the remainder made up of opinions, compliments and information requests. Two ultra-low-cost airlines fared the worst for customer complaints. Frontier Airlines garnered 32.
99 complaints per 100,000 passengers, more than twice as many as the next-worst airline, Spirit Airlines (14.76). Rounding out the bottom three was JetBlue Airways (13.
32). Alaska Airlines had the best complaint ratio at just 2.34 per 100,000 passengers, followed by Southwest Airlines (3.
61). Among legacy carriers, Delta fared the best, with 3.64 complaints per 100,000 passengers, handily beating American (5.
97) an.
