The Top Six Airlines That Americans Avoid at All Costs

Most Americans (85 percent) intend to travel this year, with 54 percent saying they intend to fly, according to The Vacationer’s “2023 Summer Travel Survey.” The company followed up this survey to dig a little deeper into the sentiment regarding the top airlines in the United States, including whether Americans avoid flying a particular airline at all costs.

The survey found that Spirit Airlines is the most avoided airline, with 21.06 percent of respondents saying so. Rounding out the top five were Allegiant Air (No. 2; 16.36 percent), American Airlines (No. 3; 14.40 percent) and Frontier Airlines (No. 4; 14.30 percent), with Delta Air Lines and JetBlue tying for fifth place (12.63 percent). Of the top six, three were low-cost carriers (both Spirit and Allegiant are “ultra-low-cost carriers,” while JetBlue is classified as “low-cost”). The remaining two—American and Delta—are both legacy carriers.

Alaska Airlines (10.68 percent) ranked seventh, with Southwest Airlines (10.28) coming in eighth, despite recent mass-cancelation incidents. With much lower response rates, United Airlines (7.64 percent) and Hawaiian Airlines (5.48 percent) closed out the list in ninth and tenth place, respectively.

That all said, nearly half of American adults do not avoid flying on any airline: 48.38 percent of respondents said they do not avoid flying on any airline. This includes the 31.73 percent who said the cost of the flight is most important to them and the 16.65 percent who said flight dates and times are the most important to them. With continued inflation, there should be no surprise that nearly one-third of all American adults said the cost of the flight is most important to them regardless of airline.

Interestingly, men were more likely than women to avoid a specific airline (54.46 to 49.07 percent). Further, every single age group overwhelmingly said the number-one airline they avoided at all costs was Spirit Airlines.

Methodology: The “2023 Airlines Americans Avoid Flying at All Costs Survey” was conducted by SurveyMonkey on behalf of The Vacationer. In total, 1,021 Americans over the age of 18 were polled on May 1.

Source: The Vacationer

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