These Are the Favorite and Least Favorite U.S. Airlines

Yahoo Travel
Updated

Virgin America earned 22 percent of the vote as favorite domestic airline. (Courtesy: Virgin America)

Virgin America is the people’s choice for best domestic airline by a wide margin, according to a survey taken by Airfarewatchdog.

The travel site asked 3,200 people this question: “Which is your favorite domestic airline?” Virgin earned 22 percent of the vote, 8 percentage points more than Alaska Airlines and JetBlue, which tied for second place.

This contrasts with Airfarewatchdog’s own Best Domestic Airline rankings in May, in which Alaska was deemed No. 1 and Virgin No. 2 on factors such as on-time performance and customer satisfaction.

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The favorite legacy carrier in the survey was Delta, though it picked up just 5 percent of the vote. US Airways was in last place with 1 percent.

This isn’t the first time Virgin has won a popularity contest. For example, it was named the most loved airline on social media last year by the research firm Luminoso.

“Virgin isn’t always the cheapest airline on routes it flies, but it does have snazzy and stylish new planes and a good record on not bumping passengers and arriving on time,” said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog. “The top three airlines have good records on things that matter most to fliers: on time performance, fewer lost bags, new planes, and fewer bumped passengers and delays.”

Here’s the complete breakdown on the survey results:

Virgin America - 22%

Alaska - 14%

Jetblue - 14%

Southwest - 11%

Hawaiian - 11%

Allegiant - 9%

Frontier - 6%

Delta - 5%

Spirit - 3%

United - 2%

American - 2%

US Airways - 1%

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