The best and worst airlines in the US for 2023, according to the WSJ

25.01.2024 - 00:17 / insider.com / Spirit Airlines / Andrew Watterson / United Airlines / Southwest Airlines / Airlines

The Wall Street Journal published its annual list of the best and worst carriers in the US for 2023, and Delta Air Lines once again took the crown for the top airline.

Delta ranked first in three of the seven evaluated metrics — on-time performance, complaints, and involuntary bumping (the latter tied with Allegiant Air).

The WSJ compiled data from aviation company Anuvu and the Department of Transportation.

In the WSJ ranking, Delta did not place lower than fifth in any of the other four categories, including flight cancellations, extreme delays greater than 45 minutes, baggage handling, and tarmac delays of at least two hours.

The carrier's on-time performance, which means arriving within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival, was 83% in 2023, the WSJ reported.

Meanwhile, the airline's low involuntary bump rate comes as no surprise, given its reputation for offering passengers thousands to give up their seats on an oversold flight.

Right on Delta's heels was its West Coast rival Alaska Airlines, which also ranked second in 2022 and 2021 and was the only other carrier to achieve a punctuality rating of at least 80%, according to the Journal. And it beat out Delta for cancelations and extreme delays.

However, the Seattle-based airline faltered in baggage handling, ranking seventh out of nine carriers — United Airlines being eighth, and American Airlines coming in dead last.

An Alaska spokesperson told the Journal that the carrier is implementing new tools and technology to improve this metric: "We are committed to improving our baggage performance and raising it to the level of reliability we offer in every other category of our operation," he said.

The Journal noted that the rankings do not include any impact from the aftermath of the Alaska 737 Max 9 door plug blowout that occurred in early January.

Gaining ground in 2023 was ultra-low-cost carrier Allegiant, which jumped from fifth to third last year. The airline won points for its low rate of flight cancellations, tarmac delays, mishandled baggage, and involuntarily bumping zero people.

Allegiant overtook Southwest Airlines, which ranked lower this year after its infamous winter meltdown in late 2022 and early 2023 caused passenger complaints and baggage mishaps to skyrocket. The Journal noted, however, that the issues did not cause Southwest to take a huge tumble, only falling one spot into fourth.

"We took lessons from the end of 2022 and made sure that 2023 was a year of progress," Southwest COO Andrew Watterson told the Journal.

American and United sat in the middle of the group, mostly losing points for cancelations, tarmac delays, and baggage mishaps. Spirit Airlines performed worse, ranking fifth or lower in every metric.

But at the bottom of the