The Wall Street Journal named Southwest Airlines the best U.S. airline of 2025, ending Delta Air Lines’ four-year run at the top and highlighting how operational consistency set carriers apart during another turbulent year for air travel.
The newspaper’s 18th annual airline scorecard ranked nine major U.S. airlines using seven equally weighted operational measures, including on-time arrivals, cancellations, long delays, baggage handling, tarmac delays, involuntary bumping and passenger complaints submitted to the Transportation Department. Hawaiian Airlines was excluded because of its regional focus.
Southwest, the nation’s largest domestic carrier by passengers, captured first place for the first time since 2020 after narrowly missing the top spot last year. Budget carrier Allegiant Air finished second, followed by Delta in third. American Airlines and Frontier Airlines tied for last.
The rankings come after a year marked by weather disruptions, air-traffic-control shortages and technology failures that tested airline operations. Industrywide performance was largely flat compared with 2024, but the scorecard found that how airlines handled disruptions made the difference.
Southwest did not dominate every category but scored near the top across the board. It posted the fewest customer complaints and tarmac delays, ranked second in on-time arrivals and cancellations, and finished no worse than fourth in any category. Its cancellation rate remained below 1% at 0.84%, trailing only Allegiant.
The performance followed years of heavy investment in operations after Southwest’s widely criticized holiday travel breakdown in late 2022 and early 2023. In 2025, the airline navigated significant internal change, including corporate layoffs, the launch of red-eye flights and a new fee for checked bags, without a corresponding drop in reliability.
Allegiant’s second-place finish was driven by industry-leading results in cancellations, mishandled baggage and involuntary bumping, though the airline lagged in on-time arrivals and experienced longer delays. Delta once again led the industry in on-time performance but slipped to third overall amid higher cancellations, tarmac delays and a surge in complaints following a major technology outage in summer 2024.
American and Frontier rounded out the rankings after difficult years. American posted the highest cancellation rate at 2.2% and failed to place higher than sixth in any category. Frontier ranked last in four of the seven measures.
Source: WSJ
I travelled on southwest airlines recently..It was my firsttime travelling with them…I was very impressed…Keep the good work up…