U.S. travellers have plenty of airlines to choose from, whether they are booking a quick city break or planning a long-haul trip. But when it comes time to book, which airline brands are really winning over consumers?
Delta Airlines ranks high with 2026 travellers
Drawing on responses from more than 23,000 Americans, the YouGov findings show that Delta Airlines took top spot in five separate categories as reported by Street.com. It is also gearing up to be one of the most-booked airlines in the next 12 months.
A whopping 49.5% of people ready to book a flight in the next year are considering Delta for their air tickets — up nearly five percentage points from last year’s report and the biggest jump of all airlines in the study.
“The real story, when you look at overall consideration, is that Delta jump-frogged over American and United to take over the No. 1 spot,” said Kenton Barello, vice president of YouGov. “They bounced up from three to one.”
The company also ranked highest with women looking to book travel within the next year. A Skift study also found that women make a reported 82% of travel decisions in households,.
In addition to taking the top spot for those looking to travel soon, Delta also ranked No. 1 in quality and had the highest scores out of all “Big Four” U.S. airlines in terms of customer satisfaction. The airline saw a 1.5% bump in overall satisfaction compared to a year ago and ranked No. 3 in terms of overall value, too.
International airlines, Southwest, Frontier win big too
In terms of customer satisfaction, the top overall airlines were all international ones. Emirates was No. 1, with a 75% satisfaction rate among current customers. Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Qantas, and Japan Airlines rounded out the top five. Qantas was also the most improved airline in terms of satisfaction.
Southwest was the clear winner in terms of value, and it also claimed the biggest conversion rate — meaning out of those considering booking on the airline, it had the highest rate of travellers actually follow through. Its Rapid Rewards programme also came in as the second-best loyalty programme in the business, behind only JetBlue’s True Blue.
Budget airline Frontier is also a winner. The airline is most likely to benefit from Spirit’s exit from the industry, according to the report.
