If you’ve been watching our monthly complaint numbers and wondering, “How much worse can it get for American Airlines?,” here’s your answer: much worse.
Grievances against the world’s largest airline doubled to 60 in July, a record month for consumer complaints. Our number of cases skyrocketed to an all-time high of 438 in July, up more than 32 percent from the previous month and nearly 28 percent from the same period a year ago. For the year, we’re up about 11 percent, to 2,309 cases.
A quick reminder, to those of you who will repeat the obvious fact that American Airlines is the world’s largest airline. (Didn’t I just say that?) We only count cases received through our help form. These are the most difficult, intractable problems, and the grievances represent a tiny fraction of the overall problems with a company. Often, consumers come to us when they’ve tried everything, up to and including litigation.
We don’t weight the complaints numbers against enplanements or sales volume, but leave that to the mathematicians in the comments.
Here are last month’s numbers:
| July 2017 | |||
| Rank | Top 25 Companies | Total Complaints | Percent |
| 1 | American Airlines | 60 | 13.70% |
| 2 | United Airlines | 16 | 3.65% |
| 3 | British Airways | 13 | 2.97% |
| 4 | Delta Air Lines | 11 | 2.51% |
| 5 | Expedia | 10 | 2.28% |
| 6 | Hertz Rent a Car | 9 | 2.05% |
| 7 | Airberlin | 7 | 1.60% |
| 8 | Amazon.com | 7 | 1.60% |
| 9 | Airbnb | 6 | 1.37% |
| 10 | American Express | 6 | 1.37% |
| 11 | Norwegian (Norwegian Air Shuttle) | 6 | 1.37% |
| 12 | Spirit Airlines | 6 | 1.37% |
| 13 | Enterprise Rent-A-Car | 5 | 1.14% |
| 14 | Lufthansa | 5 | 1.14% |
| 15 | Marriott | 5 | 1.14% |
| 16 | Allianz | 4 | 0.91% |
| 17 | Justfly.com | 4 | 0.91% |
| 18 | Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) | 4 | 0.91% |
| 19 | Orbitz (Expedia) | 4 | 0.91% |
| 20 | Southwest Airlines | 4 | 0.91% |
| 21 | Air Canada | 3 | 0.68% |
| 22 | Booking.com (Priceline) | 3 | 0.68% |
| 23 | CheapOair (Fareportal) | 3 | 0.68% |
| 24 | Dollar Rent A Car (Hertz) | 3 | 0.68% |
| 25 | 3 | 0.68% | |
| Total Cases: | 438 | ||
| Last Month: | 295 | ||
| Percent Difference: | 32.65% | ||
| Total Cases July 2016: | 316 | ||
| Percent Difference Year Ago: | 27.85% | ||
Here’s the previous month:
| June 2017 | |||
| Rank | Top 25 Companies | Total Complaints | Percent |
| 1 | American Airlines | 30 | 8.22% |
| 2 | United Airlines | 19 | 5.21% |
| 3 | Delta Air Lines | 11 | 3.01% |
| 4 | Spirit Airlines | 8 | 2.19% |
| 5 | Southwest Airlines | 7 | 1.92% |
| 6 | Expedia | 6 | 1.64% |
| 7 | Hertz Rent a Car | 6 | 1.64% |
| 8 | Alitalia | 5 | 1.37% |
| 9 | British Airways | 5 | 1.37% |
| 10 | Sears Holdings | 5 | 1.37% |
| 11 | Air Berlin | 4 | 1.10% |
| 12 | Airbnb | 4 | 1.10% |
| 13 | Alaska Airlines | 4 | 1.10% |
| 14 | Carnival | 4 | 1.10% |
| 15 | Hotels.com (Expedia) | 4 | 1.10% |
| 16 | LG Electronics | 4 | 1.10% |
| 17 | Orbitz (Expedia) | 4 | 1.10% |
| 18 | AT&T | 3 | 0.82% |
| 19 | Amazon.com | 3 | 0.82% |
| 20 | Budget Car Rental (Avis) | 3 | 0.82% |
| 21 | CheapOair (Fareportal) | 3 | 0.82% |
| 22 | DirecTV (AT&T) | 3 | 0.82% |
| 23 | Enterprise Rent-A-Car | 3 | 0.82% |
| 24 | Groupon | 3 | 0.82% |
| 25 | Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) | 3 | 0.82% |
| Total Cases: | 365 | ||
| Last Month: | 295 | ||
| Percent Difference: | 19.18% | ||
| Total Cases June 2016: | 263 | ||
| Percent Difference Year Ago: | 27.95% | ||
And here are our year-to-date numbers:
| January-July 2017 | |||
| Rank | Top 25 Companies | Total Complaints | Percent |
| 1 | American Airlines | 251 | 10.87% |
| 2 | United Airlines | 144 | 6.24% |
| 3 | Delta Air Lines | 69 | 2.99% |
| 4 | Expedia | 50 | 2.17% |
| 5 | British Airways | 49 | 2.12% |
| 6 | Enterprise Rent-A-Car | 45 | 1.95% |
| 7 | Airbnb | 37 | 1.60% |
| 8 | Southwest Airlines | 36 | 1.56% |
| 9 | Spirit Airlines | 36 | 1.56% |
| 10 | AT&T | 32 | 1.39% |
| 11 | Amazon.com | 32 | 1.39% |
| 12 | Hertz Rent a Car | 31 | 1.34% |
| 13 | Lufthansa | 29 | 1.26% |
| 14 | Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) | 23 | 1.00% |
| 15 | Air Berlin | 20 | 0.87% |
| 16 | Air Canada | 19 | 0.82% |
| 17 | Turkish Airlines | 19 | 0.82% |
| 18 | Avis Car Rental | 17 | 0.74% |
| 19 | Justfly.com | 17 | 0.74% |
| 20 | WOW Air | 17 | 0.74% |
| 21 | American Express | 16 | 0.69% |
| 22 | Orbitz (Expedia) | 15 | 0.65% |
| 23 | Hotels.com (Expedia) | 14 | 0.61% |
| 24 | Norwegian (Norwegian Air Shuttle) | 14 | 0.61% |
| 25 | Carnival | 13 | 0.56% |
| Total Cases 1/1/2017-8/1/2017: | 2,309 | ||
| Total Cases 1/1/2016-8/1/2016: | 2,043 | ||
| Percent Difference: | 11.52% | ||
What do these numbers mean?
✓ Could we talk about American for just a little longer? How is it possible for one airline to dominate our rankings for so long? What is it about American’s service that makes it such a complaint magnet? I’d really love to know. And please don’t bring up the merger. That’s ancient history.
✓ JustFly.com — hello? They weren’t even on our radar last year. Now they’re at number 19. Can anyone explain that?
✓ Non-travel companies continue to make a respectable showing on our list. That’s about to change. I have a big announcement to make this month. I can hardly contain myself.
Some of you noted last month, and will continue to make comments this month, that the way we’re counting cases has changed. We have a core list of about 100 companies we follow and our response team revises it regularly. So you’ll find that regional or local businesses won’t show up here because of our methodology.
As always, if you have a problem — any problem — please don’t forget to file a complaint with us so that we can help you. And, so we can count it.