The Sunday after Thanksgiving weekend marked a new record for air travel in the US, according to the Transportation Security Administration overview of more than 3 million passengers in one day. Of course, this does not mean that everything went smoothly.
AirHelp Inc.which makes it easier for travelers to get compensation by processing customer service claims for flight cancellations and lost luggage, has released its annual analysis of the best and worst performing airlines. The AirHelp Score Report 2024released on Tuesday, it comes just in time for the holidays.
The airline ranking methodology takes into account customer requests processed around the world, as well as external data on tracking on-time arrivals and departures for each aircraft, plus feedback from passengers from more than 54 countries about the quality of food, comfort and crew service on most recent flights. The aim is to provide a snapshot of airlines’ performance, says AirHelp CEO Tomasz Pawliszyn, with the hope that the analysis will “encourage airlines to continuously listen to passenger feedback”. The data analyzed for this round covered the period from January to October.
The worst performing airline in the world? It is Tunisair, which is last in 109th place. He is joined in the bottom 10 by several national and low-cost carriers, including Buzz, a Polish subsidiary airline Ryanair Holdings PLCBulgaria Air, Turkish carrier Pegasus Airlines and Air Mauritius. But among the bottom 50 are also North American carriers JetBlue and Air Canada.
Sort the results purely by customer opinion and Tunisair retains the title of worst, closely followed by Ryanair and Aer Lingus subsidiary IAG SAwho also owns British Airways and Iberia.
As for the best all-round airline in the world: it’s Brussels Airlines, the part Deutsche Lufthansa AGwhich catapulted Qatar Airways to 2nd place after holding the top spot since 2018. This is a significant improvement for the Belgian national airline which was ranked 12th last year.
Both United Airlines and American Airlines ranked in the top five, in third and fourth place, which may come as a surprise to US travelers given the flight disruptions that plagued domestic airlines last year. Both have been consistently ranked in AirHelp’s top 10 since at least 2022.
“This year we also had a new contender for North America, Air Transat, a Canadian airline ranked 36th,” notes Pawliszyn. Delta Air Lines it fell to 17th place from 11th in 2023, which Pawliszyn explains is due to a decrease in claim processing results, while its on-time performance and customer opinion rankings did not change much. The airline’s July technical outage led to more than 3,000 complaints against Delta being filed with the Department of Transportation.
Alaska Airlines, due to merger with Hawaiian Holdings Inc., also dropped more than 30 spots to No. 88 this year.
Curious about which airlines topped or fell in AirHelp’s 2024 global rankings? Here is a short list.
The worst airline in the world
100. Sky Express
101. Air Mauritius
102. Tarom
103. IndiGo
104. Pegasus Airlines
105. El Al Israel Airlines
106. Bulgaria Air
107. Newair
108. To buzz
109. Tunisair
The best airlines in the world
10. Air Serbia
9. Widerøe
8. Air Arabia
7. LOT Polish Airlines
6. Austrian Airlines
5. Play (Iceland)
4. American Airlines
3. United Airlines
2. Qatar Airways
1. Brussels Airlines
