Spirit, which is based in Miramar, Florida, has canceled more than 3,600 flights this year, or 1.5% of its schedule. That is lower than the 2% cancellation rate at Frontier Airlines, a similar budget carrier, and rates for JetBlue Airways and United Airlines.
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Reliability. Air travel data tracker OAG's 2023 Punctuality League ranked Frontier Airlines No. 8 out of 10 U.S. airlines when it comes to on-time performance. In 2022, 66% of its flights took off on time and just under 3% were canceled.
From this data, it looks like some of the worst airlines for complaints include Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and JetBlue Airways. Southwest is still in the top five, with 7.31 complaints per 100,000 enplanements.
For the third year in a row, Hawaiian Airlines scored the top spot as the most reliable U.S. carrier across these metrics. It had the lowest cancellation rate (fewer than 1% of its scheduled flights were canceled) and bumped just four passengers out of the nearly 10 million people it carried in 2022.
Frontier Airlines has had the worst on-time arrival performance so far in 2023. Just 65.41% of Frontier flights arrived on time from January through April 2023.
You might avoid these carriers, when possible, to be less likely to encounter unpleasant flight experiences. U.S. travelers report that American Airlines is the most unreliable airline in the world when measured by the total flight problems and reported complaints in 2022.
Is Frontier better than Spirit? Though Spirit is attractive to more frequent international travelers, has Wi-Fi available and offers more credit card options, there's still a clear winner according to our 2023 airline-industry analysis: Frontier.
Frontier serves many of it's destinations only once (or twice) daily. This is bad when your flight is delayed or canceled, since it means that they can't just put you on the next flight and get you there a few hours late.
Frontier is the only airline that scored worse than United. However, United does offer its entry-level Silver elites the ability to bring a 70 pound checked bag for free, which is a big plus if you're an overpacker.
Flight problems such as delays and cancellations were the top grievance for travelers, while other top complaint categories included baggage, customer service, and reservations/ticketing/boarding.