While we're by no means out of the woods when it comes to the pandemic, as more people in the country receive the vaccine and lockdown restrictions gradually begin to lift, it stands to reason that more Americans are going to start feeling comfortable traveling in the coming months. With that likely to be the case, Best Life decided to crunch the numbers on the biggest flight carriers in the country to determine the one airline you may want to steer clear of. According to data, we've found the most unpopular airline in America.
To find which airline needs to do the most work when it comes to providing a smooth travel experience, we started by looking at the College of Aviation at Scholarly Commons 2020 Airline Quality Rating (AQR), an annual report since 1991 that assesses the performance of airlines in the U.S. based on on-time flights, denied boardings, customer complaints, and more. We included each airline's AQR rank, where first is the best and tenth is the worst. Then we gathered the Skytrax airline star rating for each carrier. These ratings are considered to be a benchmark for airline standards and are "based on evaluation of product and service standards across the onboard and airport environments, using a unified and consistent rating system," with five stars being the best score possible.
In addition, we looked to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and their comprehensive analysis of the best and worst airlines in the U.S. in 2020 based on cancelled flights, extreme delays, passenger complaints, involuntary bumping, and more. Like we did with the AQR, we included the overall rank received from the WSJ, where first is the best and ninth is the worst.
Finally, we looked to a recent study conducted by Luggagehero, which analyzed six years of statistics from the Department of Transportation to determine how many bags per 1,000 passengers each airline loses every year on average.
We then gave each metric a weighted value before running them through our exclusive algorithm to see how each airline scored on our 100-point Flight Fail Index. So, before booking your next trip, save yourself some potential frustration by avoiding the most unpopular airline in America. Read on to find out what it is, and for more things that consumers are less than thrilled about, This Is the Most Unpopular Soda in America, According to Data.
Editor's note: "N/A" indicates that data was not available for that particular metric. We adjusted the algorithm to ensure that each airline was scored fairly and accurately.
Read the original article on Best Life.
10 Southwest
AQR rank: 3rd
Skytrax rating: 4 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: 1st
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: 3.6 pieces
Flight Fail Index Score: 0.00
And if you are wondering about how safe the place is that you plan on traveling to next, This Is the Most Dangerous City in America.
9 Delta
AQR rank: 4th
Skytrax rating: 3 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: 2nd
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: 1.55 pieces
Flight Fail Index Score: 30.04
8 Allegiant
AQR rank: 1st
Skytrax rating: 3 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: 5th
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: N/A
Flight Fail Index Score: 33.20
7 Hawaiian
AQR rank: 2nd
Skytrax rating: 3 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: N/A
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: 2
Flight Fail Index Score: 35.67
6 Alaska
AQR rank: 5th
Skytrax rating: 3 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: 3rd
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: 3 pieces
Flight Fail Index Score: 47.41
5 Spirit
AQR rank: 8th
Skytrax rating: 3 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: 4th
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: 1.9 pieces
Flight Fail Index Score: 58.49
4 JetBlue
AQR rank: 6th
Skytrax rating: 3 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: 7th
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: 2 pieces
Flight Fail Index Score: 58.65
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3 Frontier
AQR rank: 7th
Skytrax rating: 3 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: 6th
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: 1.8 pieces
Flight Fail Index Score: 59.17
2 United
AQR rank: 9th
Skytrax rating: 3 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: 7th
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: 2.9 pieces
Flight Fail Index Score: 79.50
1 American
AQR rank: 10th
Skytrax rating: 3 out of 5 stars
WSJ overall rank: 9th
Lost luggage per 1,000 people: 4.3 pieces
Flight Fail Index Score: 100.00
And for the eateries to avoid wherever you find yourself, This Is the Most Unpopular Restaurant Chain in America.
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