Most Americans booking a flight think the worst that can happen is a middle seat. They haven’t flown the airline at #1 on this list, where passengers describe lost luggage, $400 in surprise fees, and flights that departed two days late with zero compensation. These are the 19 carriers that American travelers say they will never book again, ranked by how badly they burned them.
19. Frontier Airlines
Frontier built its entire brand around low base fares, and it delivers on that promise. Everything else costs extra. A carry-on bag runs $99 each way if you don’t pay at booking, and the seats don’t recline. One traveler from Phoenix told me he ended up paying $340 more than his “cheap” ticket once he added a bag, seat selection, and a snack. The savings evaporated before he hit the gate.
18. Spirit Airlines
Spirit pioneered the unbundled fare model that every budget carrier copied. On-time performance hovers around 65%, which means one in three flights runs late. The seats are deliberately thin to pack more rows in, and there’s no free water on most routes. Spirit filed for bankruptcy in late 2024, and the ownership changes since haven’t improved reliability. Travelers who need to connect anywhere should book a buffer day.
17. Allegiant Air
Allegiant only flies certain routes on certain days, which sounds fine until your return flight is cancelled and the next available seat is four days away. The airline operates older Airbus A320s and has one of the highest maintenance-related delay rates in the US fleet. Hidden fees add an average of $80-120 per ticket according to DOT complaint data. It works perfectly if the schedule aligns. When it doesn’t, you’re stranded.
16. Sun Country Airlines
Sun Country is a seasonal carrier based in Minneapolis that competes heavily on leisure routes to warm destinations. The problem is customer service response times that run 3 to 5 days even for urgent rebooking requests. Multiple travelers report being placed on hold for over two hours when weather events disrupted flights. The fares look good in October. The experience in January, when Minnesota weather causes cascading cancellations, is a different story entirely.
15. American Airlines
American has been in financial restructuring mode since 2022 and the cuts show up at every touchpoint. Flight attendant staffing is at a documented minimum, meaning slower service and more complaints going unaddressed. The AAdvantage program devalued elite status benefits significantly in 2024, stripping upgrade perks that frequent fliers had counted on for years. A retired flight instructor from Dallas called it “an airline that hates its own customers.” The hub crowding at DFW and CLT makes misconnects common.
Read More: 21 US Airport Secrets That Could Save You Hours This Year
14. United Airlines
United’s Polaris business class is genuinely excellent. Economy is not. Basic Economy fares come with no overhead bin access, forcing passengers to gate-check bags and wait at the carousel. The MileagePlus program has become increasingly hard to redeem at reasonable rates, with partner award availability dropping 40% since 2023. United also leads major carriers in DOT consumer complaints per 100,000 passengers. Buy up to Economy Plus or expect a frustrating ride.
13. Delta Air Lines
Delta was the gold standard for years, and parts of it still are. But the 2024 IT outage that grounded thousands of flights revealed how fragile the operation had become. Over 7,000 flights were cancelled in one week, and Delta’s compensation response was widely criticized as inadequate. The SkyMiles program was restructured to make earning and redeeming miles harder for occasional travelers. It still beats most competitors, but the gap has narrowed considerably.
12. LATAM Airlines
LATAM is the dominant carrier across South America and the default choice for connecting through Lima or Bogota. American travelers report that customer service in English is inconsistently available, particularly on domestic South American legs. Baggage fees charged in local currency often surprise passengers who calculated costs in USD. After its 2020 bankruptcy restructuring, loyalty program benefits were sharply cut. If you’re flying deep into South America, LATAM may be your only option, but go in with realistic expectations.
11. Aeromexico
Aeromexico is the flag carrier of Mexico and the natural choice for routes to Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Cancun. On-time performance on international routes is below 70% according to FlightAware 2025 data. The Club Premier loyalty program is notoriously difficult to use for award redemptions, with availability described by one retired accountant from Houston as “almost fictional.” Service quality varies dramatically depending on the crew, and the premium cabin on aging 737s doesn’t justify the price premium over budget alternatives.
The next one catches more Americans off guard than any other airline on this list.
10. Ryanair
Ryanair dominates European budget travel the way Frontier wants to but never has. Americans who discover it while traveling in Europe get excited by the $15 fares. Then they learn that the “airport” is often 60-90 minutes from the city it claims to serve, boarding involves queuing on an outdoor tarmac regardless of weather, and Ryanair’s customer service policy is essentially designed to make claims impossible. Fares are real. The total cost of the trip is not what you see at checkout.
Read More: 17 Things Experienced Travelers Always Do at European Airports
9. WizzAir
WizzAir operates across Central and Eastern Europe with a fee structure that makes Frontier look generous. Priority boarding, cabin bags, and seat selection are all separately charged, and the base fare often covers only a small personal item that must fit under the seat in front. American travelers using WizzAir on European legs of longer trips frequently discover the fees at the gate, not at booking. A retired teacher from Ohio calculated she paid $210 extra on a $29 base fare. The math only works if you travel with nothing.
8. Norwegian Air
Norwegian once offered transatlantic flights for $199 and was genuinely a steal for budget-conscious travelers. The carrier exited bankruptcy in 2021 with a much smaller fleet and axed all transatlantic routes. The remaining European network has reliability issues, and the reward program NAS Reward has devalued so significantly that long-time members describe their accumulated points as nearly worthless. Norwegian still appears in search results as a transatlantic option through partner bookings, which causes booking errors that are expensive to fix.
7. IndiGo
IndiGo is India’s largest airline by market share, and Americans visiting India will almost certainly connect on it for domestic legs. Ground handling at smaller Indian airports is genuinely chaotic, and IndiGo’s weight limits on carry-ons are enforced more strictly than most travelers expect. The customer service app routes every query through an automated chatbot that rarely resolves anything. A travel writer from Chicago described a three-hour IndiGo delay at Varanasi that resulted in “a reimbursement offer of $4 and an apology email in Hindi.” Expect the unexpected.
6. Batik Air
Batik Air operates across Southeast Asia, primarily in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. It’s cheap, widely available, and has one of the highest incident rates in the ASEAN aviation safety reports. The EU Air Safety List flagged the carrier in 2023, and a 2024 cockpit incident in which both pilots fell asleep during a flight made international headlines. American travelers using Batik Air for regional hops in Southeast Asia are taking on risks they may not fully understand at booking. The savings over full-service carriers like Singapore Airlines or Thai are rarely worth it.
5. Pakistan International Airlines (PIA)
PIA has been on the EU’s banned carrier list for years, meaning it cannot operate flights into Europe. The FAA categorizes Pakistan’s aviation oversight at Category 2, the lower safety tier, which restricts PIA from expanding US operations. American travelers encounter PIA when connecting through Karachi or Lahore on complex multi-city itineraries routed by discount booking sites. In 2020 a PIA flight crashed near Karachi killing 97 of 99 people on board. Investigations found pilot licenses had been improperly issued to over 40% of PIA’s cockpit crew. This is not a cost-savings trade-off worth making.
4. Viva Aerobus
Viva Aerobus is Mexico’s most aggressively budget carrier. The fees follow a now-familiar pattern: $0 base fare, $70 for a carry-on, $25 for seat selection, $15 for printing your own boarding pass at the airport. American travelers heading to beach destinations in Mexico frequently get routed to Viva Aerobus by booking aggregators without realizing what they’re booking. Rebooking policies are rigid, and a missed connection due to a Viva delay does not entitle you to accommodation under Mexican aviation rules the way EU261 would in Europe. Several Reddit travel communities have dedicated threads to Viva Aerobus fee disclosures.
3. Flydubai
Flydubai is the low-cost arm of Emirates and shares its hub, which makes it tempting for American travelers connecting through Dubai. The problem is that the two carriers’ systems do not always communicate correctly, and passengers booked on combined Emirates-Flydubai itineraries have missed connections because of check-in desk confusion and bag transfer errors. In 2016 a Flydubai crash in Rostov-on-Don killed all 62 people on board, attributed to pilot fatigue and crew resource management failures. The airline has since made changes, but safety culture at LCCs operating in high-pressure hub environments remains a legitimate concern worth researching before booking. The fare differential over a full Emirates ticket is rarely as large as it appears.
Bad — but nothing compared to what’s waiting at #1.
2. Air India
Air India was privatized and handed to the Tata Group in 2022, and the turnaround has been publicly promised but inconsistently delivered. The fleet is aging on many routes, business class cabins on some 777s are over 15 years old with no seat-back entertainment, and economy legroom has not improved despite the ownership change. A retired professor from Seattle booked business class to Delhi and described the experience as “paying a premium for something that would have been average in 2010.” Multiple travelers report that Air India’s new app crashes during check-in. Compensation claims take an average of 90 days to process. Tata has pledged a complete fleet overhaul by 2027, which means the current product is still mid-renovation.
Bad — but nothing compared to what’s waiting at #1.
1. Avianca
The Undisputed Worst of Them All
Avianca is Colombia’s flag carrier and one of the most heavily criticized airlines by American travelers who use it for South American connections. It has filed for bankruptcy twice in the last decade, emerging from Chapter 11 in 2021, and the financial instability has created an operational culture where cost-cutting overrides almost everything else. A travel agent from Miami who books Latin American itineraries told me: “I stopped routing clients through Avianca in 2023 because the rebooking calls were costing me more in labor than the fares saved. Every disruption becomes a two-day problem.”
The specific failure pattern that earns Avianca this spot is not just delays. It is the combination of delays plus an unresponsive customer service operation plus a refund process that can take 6-9 months. American passengers who file DOT complaints about Avianca consistently report that the airline either fails to respond within the required timeframe or responds with form letters that do not address the complaint. In 2024 alone, Avianca was cited in over 1,200 DOT complaint filings by US-origin passengers, the highest of any foreign carrier.
One retired engineer from Atlanta was stranded in Bogota for 36 hours when an Avianca equipment failure grounded his connection. The airline provided no hotel, no meal vouchers, and when he finally reached a customer service agent, was told to “check the website for updates.” His compensation claim took seven months and a credit card chargeback to resolve.
If you’re flying to Colombia, Ecuador, or Peru, codeshare partners and alternatives exist. Check them first.
Now you know why we saved this one for last.
Next Time You Book a Cheap Flight, Read This First
The airlines on this list are not all equally bad, and some only fail in specific scenarios. But the pattern is consistent: the cheaper the base fare, the higher the risk of hidden costs, operational chaos, or worse. For 45+ travelers who can’t afford a week stranded in a foreign city, the $60 you save on a Frontier or Avianca ticket is rarely worth the exposure. Forward this to anyone you know who books on price alone. Their travel agent won’t be this direct with them.
