Despite the success of European budget airlines like Ryanair and Norwegian Air, low-cost carriers in the U.S. have struggled to find a consistent place with American audiences. The seats may often be cheaper on these budget carriers, sure, but few customers are happy with the footnotes that come with these "bare fares," where you'll tack on additional fees for things like printing your boarding pass at the airport, bringing a carry-on on the plane with you, and even purchasing water on your flight. The dissatisfaction shows: according to this year’s American Customer Satisfaction Index travel report, Spirit Airlines has the lowest customer satisfaction score—a 62 out of 100.
More than 70 percent of the time, Spirit actually has the best rate for its routes. Yet its à la carte pricing model bumps up the prices—and seemingly, the hassle—for most fliers, and instead of being read as a flexible pricing model that can be tailored to the traveler, there have been numerous posts dedicated to getting around the airline's rigid rules. Although Spirit did rank the lowest in airline customer satisfaction, there is something of a silver lining for the carrier: it scored nearly 15 percent higher than it did last year.
Following closely behind Spirit in the ratings are fellow low-cost carriers Allegiant (65) and Frontier (66). JetBlue and Southwest, both scoring 80 out of 100, tied for first place. The process wasn't just as simple as asking customers whether or not they were happy with an airline: the American Customer Satisfaction Index generated the report based on the feedback and travel experiences from more than 7,000 airline, hotel, and travel industry customers, and the airlines' flight schedule options, check-in, reservations, on-time arrival, baggage handling, loyalty programs, in-flight services, flight crew courtesy, seat comfort, website, and call center.
Plus: Vote for your favorite hotels, cities, airlines and more in the 2016 Readers’ Choice Awards survey.