The U.S. airline industry is facing questions about safety after a string of concerning events this year.
The most notorious occurred on Jan. 5, when a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane midair on an Alaska Airlines flight. Even though the plane landed safely and no one was injured, the incident caused concern about the safety of other Boeing 737 Max planes, leading other airlines like United Airlines to also ground their fleet during the fallout. A month later, after undergoing Federal Aviation Administration inspections, 94% of Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737 Max 9 planes were back in service.
To find out which U.S. airlines have the best and worst safety records, Stacker looked at WalletHub’s 2024 report on this year’s best airlines and narrowed the data to the safety section of the study, which looked at two metrics from 2018 to 2023: 1) the number of fatal injuries in aviation accidents and 2) the number of injuries in aviation incidents and accidents. The 10 national airlines studied were then ranked from least to most safe. The maximum score an airline can achieve is 35 points.
Read on to see how your airline of choice—and its competitors—rank.
10. Southwest Airlines
- Safety score: 4.52
Not only did Southwest Airlines have the lowest score in WalletHub’s safety reporting on U.S. airlines, but as of July 2024, the FAA placed the airline under a safety audit after a string of close calls on its flights. In May, for example, a Southwest flight went into a Dutch roll, which is when the plane’s wings oscillate, causing the nose to make a figure-eight motion. No one was injured, and the FAA said the incident resulted from damage to the tail, which controls the rudder.
9. United Airlines
- Safety score: 20
In March 2024, the FAA said it was bumping up oversight of United after those aforementioned incidents involving wheels and tires lost and skidding off runways. That oversight prevented United from adding new routes and required the FAA to be present during inspections of new planes to replace old ones in the airline’s fleet. United’s CEO, Scott Kirby, has pledged to refocus the company on safety and review its policies. As of mid-May 2024, the FAA cleared the airline to add new aircraft and routes once again.
8. Hawaiian Airlines
- Safety score: 21.73
As of Aug. 9, the NTSB hasn’t had to investigate any incidents aboard Hawaiian Airlines flights so far this year. In fact, Hawaiian Airlines is also the nation’s oldest carrier that’s never had a fatal accident in its 95-year history. However, Hawaiian is also quite a bit smaller than other stateside airlines. It operates about 260 flights each day, most of which are leaving from or arriving in Hawai’i. For comparison, other major U.S. carriers manage upwards of 4,000 flights per day.
7. JetBlue
- Safety score: 23.06
As of early August 2024, the only event the NTSB has had to investigate this year was a February accident wherein a JetBlue plane collided with another aircraft on the ground while it was getting in place to deice. No one was injured. In 2023, JetBlue reported three nonserious events to the NTSB and two additional accidents that did involve serious injury, which are still under investigation.
6. Delta Air Lines
- Safety score: 23.89
Delta Air Lines operates at high volume—about 4,000 flights daily and 190 million customers in 2023. As of Aug. 9, the airline has reported four serious accidents to the NTSB this year so far. In late June, the airline had four incidents within 48 hours, including an engine catching fire shortly after takeoff. No one was hurt in those cases.
5. American Airlines
- Safety score: 23.98
Even though the FAA closely monitored United earlier this year, a union for American Airlines pilots said in April that scrutiny could have easily been for their airline. The union said it noticed “a significant spike in safety- and maintenance-related problems.” In terms of incidents involving an NTSB investigation, American has only had one serious occurrence in 2024 as of early August.
4. SkyWest Airlines
- Safety score: 28.64
SkyWest Airlines, headquartered in Utah, is a regional airline with nearly 500 planes in its fleet. It operates through carrier partnerships with American, United, Delta, and Alaska Airlines. The airline has had a clean record with the NTSB since the middle of 2022. In June 2023, however, airline unions accused SkyWest of trying to evade safety regulations for passenger airlines by operating some flights as charters. The FAA also began investigating the airline’s maintenance program in September.
3. Frontier Airlines
- Safety score: 29.94
Colorado-based Frontier Airlines is more similar in size to Hawaiian than the major U.S. airlines like American, Delta, and United. It operates about 500 flights per day and, as of early August, hasn’t reported any incidents to the NTBS yet this year. It also didn’t have any events in 2022. Its only report in the past two years came in March 2023, when rough air resulted in a flight attendant falling and breaking their hip.
2. Alaska Airlines
- Safety score: 32.04
Alaska Airlines may have had the most infamous airline safety issue of the year, in which a door plug flew off midflight, but much of the fallout came to airplane manufacturer, Boeing. That was Alaska Airlines’ only incident this year, according to the NTSB. Despite the frightening situation, it has one of the highest ratings for airline safety. In AirlineRatings.com’s annual report, Alaska was the only U.S. airline to rank in the top 10 for 2021 and 2022.
1. Spirit Airlines
- Safety score: 33.07
Travelers may joke about Spirit Airlines for giving passengers a no-frills experience on board its flights, but the low-cost carrier’s safety record is serious business. For the second year in a row, Spirit Airlines tops the list as the safest U.S. airline, according to WalletHub’s data. The FAA has also awarded Spirit the Aviation Maintenance Technician Diamond Award of Excellence every year from 2019 to 2024. So far this year, the NTSB has investigated two incidents on Spirit flights as of Aug. 9—with only one involving serious injury.
Story editing by Jaimie Etkin. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Ania Antecka.
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