I’ve been a passenger on nearly 800 flights with 58 different airlines (as of 2023). Honestly, most of them have been pretty reliable and had acceptable customer service. They understandably fall short every once in a while, but that can happen to any airline.
However, there are three airlines on which we’ve flown that were noticeably worse than any other.
Third worst) TAP Portugal
Delayed flights cost the airline industry billions of dollars every year. TAP doesn’t seem to care about that. As one of the most frequently delayed airlines in the world, their employees don’t seem to have any sense of urgency in boarding passengers, pulling away from the gate, and taxiing to the runway (at least in our experience). We love Portugal and the Portuguese people, and we’re aware that culturally they are very laidback. But the airline industry is no place for lackadaisical behavior.
There are also cases of TAP flights being canceled and replaced by another flight that doesn’t depart until nearly a week later! Now that would ruin anyone’s vacation. Thank heavens European airlines have liberal compensation for lengthy delays, including TAP. But they’re still rated one of the world’s ten worst airlines when considering comfort, food, service, and essentially the entire experience. TAP also receives the most complaints of any airline in the world, nearly double second-place Air India!
Second worst) United Airlines
Unlike TAP Portugal, United Airlines doesn’t believe in giving any monetary compensation to customers for company mistakes. When it comes to on-time departures, United admittedly ranks fourth best among U.S. airlines. But when they are late and cause a domino-effect of missed connections, it’s their customer service with stranded passengers that is shockingly bad compared to other airlines. We’ve personally had five such cases in which United stranded us in a city due to mechanical issues leading to missed connections or cancelled flights. In all five instances, they refused to help us financially.
By comparison, other U.S. airlines have always helped us with a portion of these costs, at least waving the difference in flight prices. Airlines (except for United) have provided generous vouchers to make up for something as minor as losing our luggage or running out of headphones. United doesn’t believe in that level of customer service and has flat out refused to make amends for their many egregious errors in our experience. But my wife got even with them when she deprived them of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue (discussed in a different Quora post of mine linked at the end of this post).
Worst) Aeroflot
With more fatalities than any other airline in the world and perpetually rated one of the worst airlines, riding on Aeroflot indeed felt like taking our lives into our own hands. On several flights to Moscow, we vividly recall plummeting out of the sky onto the runway in the most dramatic drop we’ve ever felt on final approach. We learned from locals that a lot of former Russian Air Force pilots took commercial jobs back then, which explains the diving maneuver.
The seats are horribly uncomfortable, customer service is atrocious, reliability is almost nil, and the planes felt like aging relics due to poor maintenance. While Egyptair and Turkish Airlines might have a bad reputation in online expert rankings, I found both of those far superior to Aeroflot.
Disclaimer
Keep in mind that the question asks for the worst airline I’ve traveled on. Telling me to add other airlines to my list is foolish because I probably haven’t used those airlines or at least didn’t have the same experience as you. Write your own post.
Additionally, we flew Aeroflot and United from the 1970s until 2010 before permanently avoiding them. Suggesting that my experience is out of date is equally foolish. While United hasn’t really changed, yes, Aeroflot has made some improvements. But the question asks about our personal experience when we flew with a particular airline (no matter what year it was). It does not ask which airline was the worst on which we’ve flown and continues to be the worst without improving since we’ve flown. That is greatly overcomplicating a simple question.
Think about what is being asked before hastily hitting the comment button.
Extra reading
The shocking story of how the rude behavior of one United Airlines employee sabotaged our honeymoon, and how my wife got even with them by possibly causing up to half a billion dollars in lost revenue for United!
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