Plane Truth 2025: Airline complaints rise

Complaints lodged against U.S. airlines hit another record in 2024. In fact, last year marked the fourth year in the last five that complaints against U.S. carriers increased to new highs, as travelers sounded off about problems including canceled flights, lost baggage and stalled refunds.

It’s clear that, five years after COVID turned the airline industry and just about everything else upside down, travelers still are demanding that airlines do better. In many cases, they are. In many, they’re not.

Complaints against U.S. airlines increased by nearly 9% in 2024, even though the volume of passengers increased by only 4% compared with 2023.

For the third year in a row, Frontier had the most complaints per 100,000 passengers among the 10 largest airlines. Frontier’s level was considerably worse than the carrier with the second-highest ratio, Spirit. Southwest and Alaska had the fewest, according to a U.S. PIRG Education Fund analysis of Department of Transportation (DOT) data.

Completely independent of complaints, the DOT says airlines overall lost or damaged fewer bags and wheelchairs, and bumped fewer travelers involuntarily in 2024.

However, both cancellations and delays increased overall in 2024 compared with 2023. The remainder of 2025 is a question mark now that air traffic controller shortages are creating chaos at Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the nation’s busiest, and various other airports at different times.

Here’s what will be interesting to watch as we enter the busy 2025 travel season: Global passenger volume had been expected to increase by 6.7% this year compared with 2024, and exceed the 5 billion mark worldwide for the first time, according to the International Air Transport Association.

But with economic uncertainty and a decline in international tourists, the largest airlines including Delta, Southwest and United say they plan to cut the number of flights in the months ahead because demand could falter. If they do reduce flights and demand remains strong, however, look for extra-crowded cabins and airports, an increase in connection-busting delays and another record year for complaints for 2025.

THE BEST AND WORST AIRLINES

KEY FINDINGS

Travelers found their voice in 2020 when many airlines played games with refunds for canceled flights, by issuing vouchers that expired or flat out refusing to issue legally required refunds. That year set a record for total complaints from U.S. and foreign airlines, ticket agents and others, reaching 102,550. About one-third of those targeted U.S. airlines.

Complaints against U.S. airlines fell in 2021 but have increased every year since. Some thought the huge spike in 2022 – when complaints more than doubled – stemmed just from anger over the surge in cancellations and delays. Clearly, it was more than that because even when cancellations and delays improved in 2023, complaints still increased.

And complaints increased again in 2024. Our top findings:

• Complaints against U.S. airlines hit another record, at 66,675. That’s an increase of nearly 9% compared with 2023.
• Total airline complaints hit 89,094 in 2024, an increase of less than 2%. This includes all complaints against U.S. airlines, foreign airlines, ticket agents and others. Complaints against U.S. and foreign airlines comprised nearly all complaints in the last few years.That 89,094 is the second-highest level ever, behind the 102,550 complaints filed in 2020.
• Frontier again had the worst ratio of complaints to boarded passengers, the benchmark DOT uses. Frontier’s complaint ratio of 23.3 per 100,000 passengers was more than 10 points higher than the next worst airline, Spirit, at 12.8. The third worst complaint ratio: JetBlue, at 10.4.
• The average among the 10 largest airlines (including their marketing partners) was 7.2 in 2024.
• Southwest had the best complaint ratio at 1.5, followed by Alaska (2.6) and Hawaiian (3.8.)
• On the flight performance side, delays and cancellations both increased in 2024. On-time arrivals dipped to 77.9% among all U.S. airlines (not just the top 10), compared with 78.2% in 2023. That may not sound like a big difference, but two- or three-tenths of a point means thousands of flights.
• This means that nearly 1.7 million flights were delayed or canceled in 2024 out of the 7.5 million flights scheduled for the top 10 airlines and their marketing partners,
• Last year’s on-time performance was the second-worst percentage in the last 10 years, behind the awful 76.6% on-time performance in 2022. And 2022 was significantly worse than 2021. That was largely attributed to many airlines being understaffed in the post-COVID era after they offered buyout and retirement packages.
• The 10-year on-time average is 79.9%; last year’s performance was worse than that average by 2 points.
• Cancellations edged up to 1.36%, compared with 1.28% in 2023. That remains below historic levels. But again, even a fraction of 1% means thousands of flights that are canceled – or not.
• About 2.7 million checked bags, wheelchairs or scooters were mishandled, generally meaning lost or damaged or something missing. That included 11,357 wheelchairs and scooters.
• Airlines in 2024 experienced 437 tarmac delays of more than three hours on domestic flights and 61 tarmac delays of more than four hours on international flights, the DOT said.That’s up from 289 tarmac delays on domestic flights and 35 tarmac delays on international flights in 2023.The 2024 domestic tarmac delays are the most in one year since the Tarmac Delay Rule took effect April 29, 2010. That rule says airlines can be liable for fines up to $27,500 per passenger if a domestic flight remains on the tarmac for more than three hours.

TRAVELER COMPLAINTS INCREASED AGAIN

For complaints, it’s important to remember that the DOT directs travelers to file grievances only after they’ve tried to resolve their issue with the airline or ticket agent and haven’t succeeded.

In the cases of cancellations or delays, travelers may want reimbursement for expenses that they’re entitled to receive, or they may want consideration for a missed connection or event.

Or they may still be waiting for refunds that are required by law when the airline cancels the flight for any reason, including weather. In still other cases, travelers may be looking for reimbursement for lost or damaged bags or wheelchairs.

TOP AIRLINE COMPLAINTS IN RECENT YEARS

Cancellations/Delays
Lost or damaged bags, wheelchairs
Reservations
Fares
Customer service
Disability rights
Oversales (Bumping)
Discrimination
Advertising

The data the DOT released last month doesn’t include the detail of years past, which broke down complaints by type. The top three for years have been refunds; cancellations and delays; and baggage and wheelchairs, comprising nearly three-fourths of all complaints. Other issues complained about most: reservations, fares, customer service and problems faced by those with disabilities.

With the data released for 2024, DOT for the second year in a row said it tallied only total submissions and didn’t break out complaints, opinions, compliments and information requests. It did, however, point out that complaints comprised 91% of submissions the last three years.

That amounted to:

• 66,675 complaints for all U.S. airlines (up from 61,233 in 2023.
• 19,936 for foreign airlines (down from 22,617.)
• 1,620 for travel companies such as third-party online ticket agents (down from 2,862.)

While total complaints against U.S. airlines increased by nearly 9% compared with 2023, the volume for foreign airlines and travel companies both declined notably.

Total complaints against all in the airline industry reached 89,094 last year, an increase from 2023 but well short of the 102,550 filed in 2020.

YOU CAN FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE DOT
ABOUT AN AIRLINE, TICKET SITE, TRAVEL AGENT OR SOMEONE ELSE
IF YOU DON’T GET RESOLUTION TO A PROBLEM

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Five years after the pandemic brought much of the world to a halt and Congress gave the airlines $54 billion to keep them in business, some aspects of air travel have improved.

Cancellations last year edged up but are half of what they were in 2022. There were more delays too, but it wasn’t as bad as in 2022.

About 1.55 million flights were delayed and 103,000 were canceled. That’s a lot.

The percentage of mishandled bags and wheelchairs improved slightly, but still 2.7 million bags were lost or damaged, as were 11,357 wheelchairs and scooters.

Then there were the domestic tarmac delays: 437 of them in 2024, a huge increase from the 289 the year before. That 437 is the highest number by far since the Tarmac Delay Rule took effect in 2010.

Finally, complaints against U.S. airlines in 2024 were triple what they were in 2022.