Airlines don’t typically enjoy the best reputations when it comes to customer satisfaction.
Between unreliable airlines with numerous canceled flights, shrinking airplane seat sizes, and aviation debacles like the Southwest meltdown of December 2022, many travelers are not exactly thrilled with airlines in the United States.
Many travelers take to Twitter to air their complaints — or share their positive feedback.
Travel insurance company InsureMyTrip used Twitter sentiment analysis to rank the airlines with the most positive (and the most negative) mentions on the social media platform.
These rankings are based on the aggregated sentiment analysis of nearly 4,000 tweets from 2022.
According to the data, these are the travelers’ favorite (and least favorite) airlines, along with the most common complaints that travelers share on Twitter when it comes to airlines.
Airlines With The Most Positive Twitter Mentions
InsureMyTrip looked at airline mentions on Twitter and categorized them into positive, neutral, and negative sentiments.
The airlines with the most positive Twitter mentions were:
- Alaska Airlines: 29% positive
- United Airlines: 26% positive
- Hawaiian Airlines: 23% positive
While far from a glowing majority, these airlines received more positive mentions than any other on Twitter.
However, that doesn’t tell the full story — all of these airlines still received far more negative mentions than positive ones.
When it comes to negative sentiment, here’s how these “favorite” airlines stacked up:
- Alaska Airlines: 51% negative
- United Airlines: 37% negative
- Hawaiian Airlines: 43% negative
Surprisingly, United Airlines came out as the winner in this, with the second-highest percentage of positive mentions and the lowest percentage of negative mentions.
Airlines With The Most Negative Mentions
While Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, and Hawaiian Airlines are the three airlines with the most favorable mentions from travelers, these are the bottom three airlines with the most negative mentions on Twitter:
- Frontier Airlines: 61% negative
- Spirit Airlines: 59% negative
- American Airlines: 59% negative
It’s clear that the majority of travelers are NOT happy with these airlines.
That’s revealed even more so when you compare the percentage of negative mentions with the number of positive mentions these airlines receive:
- Frontier Airlines: 13% positive
- Spirit Airlines: 14% positive
- American Airlines: 19% positive
Interestingly, almost every airline on the list from InsureMyTrip saw an increase in negative mentions and a decrease in positive mentions from 2021 to 2022, some by as much as 20%.
What Are Travelers’ Biggest Complaints?
When frustrated travelers take to Twitter to air their grievances against an airline, there are a handful of key topics they’re typically complaining about.
According to the Twitter sentiment analysis from InsureMyTrip, these are the biggest concerns that travelers have in order of most to least mentions:
- Money
- Delay
- Cancel
- Customer service
- Luggage
- Flight attendant
Unsurprisingly, the airline with the most negative mentions (Frontier Airlines) had a high percentage of negative tweets mentioning these topics: Money (20%), Cancel (16%), and Delay (14%).
How Does This Data Stack Up To Other Rankings?
These airline rankings are based on Twitter sentiment analysis alone and don’t take into account any other factors.
When you consider that many travelers only take to Twitter to air their frustrations after a bad experience, and are less likely to spontaneously praise an airline on Twitter, these rankings can become a little more muddled and skew to the negative.
For example, Delta Air Lines won the award for Best Global Airline in the Americas in the APEX Passenger Choice Awards but despite its favorable position, it ranks on the lower end of this Twitter sentiment analysis.
However, these Twitter rankings may reveal what travelers really think about airlines, especially their in-the-moment reactions and frustrations.
