Ranking Domestic Airlines

This year, I’m transient, living all around the country and working remotely. While my goal is to drive everywhere, sometimes flying is inevitable, like when I need to travel across the country for a work meeting or conference, or when Widespread Panic is playing ridiculously far away from where I’m staying. Recently, I took six round-trip flights in a span of only 11 weeks. All six flights were on different airlines, so I took the time to review my experiences with each airline and rank them based on my preferences.

In chronological order, I took:

• United: February 22- February 25

  • RDU --> DEN: DEN --> RDU

• Frontier: March 2-March 6

  • RDU --> LAS: LAS --> RDU

• American: March 23-March 30

  • CLT --> JAX: JAX --> CLT --> MCI: MCI --> CLT

• Southwest: April 14-April22

  • TPA --> PVD: PVD --> TPA

• Delta: April 25-April27

  • MOB --> ATL --> LAX: LAX --> MEM

• Breeze: May 4-May 10

  • MSY --> CHS: CHS --> MSY

Here are my rankings, along with my experience with each airline:

6. Breeze Airlines, New Orleans to Charleston

This is an incredibly regional airline… the reason you’d even be tempted to book one of their nice, nicer, or nicest fares (their cheeky way of differentiating between ticket levels) would be if you want to go on a VERY specific trip. Like from Columbus, OH to Providence, RI. Or from Raleigh, NC to New Orleans, LA. I would not recommend flying with this airline unless one of their obscure locations fits your unique needs – because perhaps a direct flight to a mid-size airport is worth the hassle of losing your bag or getting incredibly delayed.

I haven’t lost a bag since probably 2000, definitely prior to 9/11. Alas, after flying an average of 20 round trips per year, it finally happened on Breeze Airways. And you might expect this to occur on a flight with a layover or two, but in this scenario it was a direct flight. What happened exactly? About 8 bags were simply left in New Orleans and were never loaded on the aircraft.

My return flight ended up departing 2.5 hours late. Fortunately, we were able to adjust our plans for the day after the airline texted me to notify me of a one hour delay. So, not a huge deal there. However, I received a text about an additional 20-minute delay while en route to the airport. The aircraft officially left the ground just after 8:45 pm when the original departure time was 6:10 pm. Not ideal, however I woke up to a text letting me know 2,000 “Breeze Points” are now available in my account, for what that’s worth!

With the massive delay and lost bag fiasco, I rank this the lowest out of the six domestic airlines I traveled.

5. Southwest Airlines, Tampa to Providence

This is by far the friendliest airline you can possibly fly! All the employees are so nice, from the ticket counter to the flight attendants, to the folks on the phone. It’s incredibly refreshing to be treated SO WELL during air travel. However, kindness can’t make up for unexpected delays and cheaper flight options. SWA has always been my go-to airline, but unfortunately it ranked so low because of how expensive their flights have gotten and how delayed we were coming home. I was notified about the first delay with plenty of time to adjust my plans for the day. Although that meant a pretty significant change in plans for me, at least there was a warning. However, once boarded we were notified of another hour-long delay because of staffing issues in flight control at the Tampa airport. Talk about first-time experiences! We ended up driving to an airplane parking lot to wait, also a first, and it’s never fun waiting while already boarded, especially when given such little information.

And I’ve always considered Southwest the King of Snacks, however that doesn’t even hold true any longer… (jump down to Delta for a snacky spoiler!). Southwest has the snack mix, akin to a chex mix, which is delicious, but BRING BACK NUTS!!!

Do you want to feel loved and appreciated? This is the airline for you! Do you want to arrive at your destination on time with low airfare? Look elsewhere.

4. Frontier Airlines, Raleigh to Vegas

This is the airline with the worst reputation of the six I flew, so I was excited to try it out! Go into your Frontier experience like you are a worthless piece of garbage and it really isn’t so bad! Yes, you pay for literally everything. And, yes, they are STICKLERS about bags. But in my experience, each flight got in early, flawlessly, and it was cheap!

Be aware! The checked bag limit is 40 pounds, not 50! Mine was so heavy and I had to transfer things from my carry on into my checked bag (that’s another first!) so that my “personal item” would fit into the mock carrier they have at the ticketing counter. This woman made every single person fit their personal item and carry-on bags into the little metal container to prove it fits. It was laughable how much time it took and how everyone’s bags actually fit, so there wasn’t an obvious reason for why she was doing it… other than to exert control and play into their reputation of being complete assholes. Needless to say, I ended up paying an extra $50 each way since my bag was so overweight. The flight was cheap but after all the added bag fees it really wasn’t much cheaper than the other, nicer airlines.

You won’t get smiled at, you won’t hear a friendly voice, you won’t feel special, you won’t get snacks or drinks on board, and you won’t even have access to a flight tracker let alone Wi-Fi, but by golly you’ll make it there, and most likely early!

3. United Airlines, Raleigh to Denver

I was particularly grumpy about having to take this flight because I was experiencing an 83-degree temperature swing going the wrong way… from a real feel of 80* to a real feel of -3*.However, I’m still ranking United smack dab in the middle at number 3. I’ve gotta give props to them for the early morning stroopwafels on their flights! Their staff is friendly, and my return flight was completely on-time and uneventful, which is all you can really ask for.

However, my first leg was delayed about an hour once we boarded. We sat on the airplane at the gate after boarding and the pilot came on and explained:

“The automated baggage software stopped working. The machine that reads the bar codes on the checked bags is working, which is good. But our staff in Chicago have to manually input every single barcode number into the software as that is no longer automated. There are several planes in front of ours, so they need to wrap those up before they can begin manually uploading our flights’ baggage information. But, I’m being told we are next up! Once the staff in Chicago get everything uploaded we can be up and on our way.

Sorry if I explained things in too much detail, my wife says I do that a lot.”

Ha! I am SO appreciative of the extra details! It makes waiting not feel so bad when you know exactly why you are waiting… right? The hour flew by just thinking about all those bar codes, all those numbers, all that automation, all those people so far away! What an incredible network of logistics to make things work. Aside from that slight delay we were on time, the people were friendly, and the snacks were banging (aka I love stroopwaffles!).

2. American Airlines, Charlotte to Jacksonville – Jacksonville to KC (through Charlotte) – KC to Charlotte

This trip had the most opportunity for failure, being 4 flights instead of 2; however, literally NOTHING happened. And therefore, I’m somehow ranking American above United at the number tw

o spot. All four flights, all pieces and parts went so smoothly, everything was on time, I had no issue with my checked bag, and the employees were friendly enough to be completely unmemorable. Even after four flights I don’t even have a single unusual story to share about any part of the journey. And clearly I love unique scenarios, but in air travel having nothing stand out can be a really good thing!

If you’re looking for your airline experience to be entertaining, for you to feel special, or to have a good story then I do not recommend American. However, if you’re seeking the most boring experience and want to arrive on time to your destination, then American Airlines is the one for you!

1. Delta Airlines, Mobile to LAX (through Atlanta) – LAX to Memphis

Delta is by far the BEST domestic airline. It’s the closest the U.S. comes to having an international traveling experience. You know, the one you see in movies when all the employees are kind, dressed in cute little outfits, pleased to serve, airplanes are clean and huge, etc. The staff at Delta are friendly, the flights run smoothly, I had no issue with overhead bin space, and the snacks are on point. You get FIVE (yes, FIIIIIIVE) snack options: cookies, almonds, granola bars, pretzels, and Sun Chips. WOAH. Move over, Southwest! You are no longer the snack king…. Delta has you beat with five times the number of options. And when the flight attendant saw my eyes light up with the number of options, he gladly gave me multiple snacks and came back to check in to see if I wanted more. Which, I obviously did.

Considering this was my farthest flight I was expecting something to go wrong at some point. But alas… even my quick layover in Atlanta, which required me to travel across five terminals, proved to be plenty of time to get to my gate and get a cup of coffee. While in the Atlanta airport I heard over the speaker: “Atlanta International Airport is the largest and most efficient airport in the WORLD.” What?! The world?! But after seeing how many people moved through each terminal and trying to understand the magnitude of the Delta network and all the layovers that move through ATL, I was in awe of how well the machine of air travel works.

I highly recommend flying Delta if you can!

If you’ve experienced something entirely different, please let me know! I’d love to hear your stories and how you’d rank these six domestic airlines differently, even though I’ll know you’re wrong. 😉 Sometimes we don’t get the luxury of having a choice of airlines. Oftentimes our choice is left up to the best date or time and we have to go with whatever airline flies direct or gets us in for a particular event. But, if you find yourself debating which airline to choose, I hope this list helps you decide.