While I’m sure you think you have an idea of what the most hated airline in the world is (hint: it’s probably not the one that lost your baggage last month), currency exchange company S Money has decided to do some digging and pull together two easy-to-digest lists. The first, the most hated airlines in the world. And the second, the most loved airlines in the world.
It doesn’t take much for an airline to build up either positive or negative sentiment. And in all honesty, perhaps society is a bit too unkind and unforgiving when it comes to these companies. There’s also the fact that S Money has only used Twitter sentiment as a metric to decide on which are the most hated and most loved airlines in the world. And Twitter, as everyone should know by now, is an absolute cesspool of polarisation, hyperbole and outrage.
Yet, public sentiment is still fairly reliable when it comes to brands. Knowing that there’s a widely shared baseline experience with a certain company ups the probability that more is going on here that warrants a bit of trepidation. Conversely, when positive sentiment is widespread, it also indicates that you’re much more likely to have a positive experience.
The value in these specific round-ups lies in the fact that almost all of the airlines listed are low-cost carriers. Of course, they are the ones that are going to have the more polarising experiences because most passengers would already go in with low expectations. It’s also much more difficult to ascertain the overall quality of a low-cost carrier when compared to a full-service airline, hence why we’re so fascinated by these two lists.
According to the website, S Money tracked down the official Twitter handles of all the world’s major airlines and simply collected tweets that mentioned them. Again, it’s not the best metric, especially since S Money used an “AI Sentiment tool” to put together either a positive or negative score, but it’s crowd-sourced data that should be ignored.
The most loved airlines were those with the highest percentage of positive tweets, while the most hated airlines were the ones with the most negative tweets.
In case you were wondering, Qantas does not appear on the most hated list, although its low-cost extension, Jetstar most certainly does. The oft-derided Australian LLC comes in as the third most hated airline in the world. India’s Go First tops the undesirable top 10 with a 73.8% negativity rating, while the country’s SpiceJet also rounds out the list.
On a more positive note, Canada’s low-cost Bearskin Airlines is apparently the world’s most beloved with a 53.4% positivity score. That might not seem like a high number, but when you consider how common it is for even the smallest hiccup to turn into a viral hate campaign against a brand, I’d say anything above 50% is a damn near miracle for an airline.
While only the top 10 were revealed, S Money has noted that despite Jetstar Airways being the online company to make the cut, both Qantas and Virgin Australia received over 50% in their respective negativity ratings.
The Most Hated Airlines In The World
- Go First (India) – 73.8%
- TAP Air (Portugal) – 68.4%
- Jetstar Airways (Australia) – 67.5%
- WestJet (Canada) – 67.4%
- Flair Airlines (Canada) – 65.2%
- Vueling (Spain) – 64.6%
- Air Transat (Canada) – 63.3%
- Spirit Airlines (USA) – 62.2%
- Frontier Airlines (USA) – 61.9%
- SpiceJet (India) – 61.1%
The Most Loved Airlines In The World
- Bearskin Airlines (Canada) – 53.4%
- Pacific Coastal Airlines (Canada) – 48.5%
- TAP Express (Portugal) – 47.8%
- Canadian North (Canada) – 47.4%
- Auric Air (Tanzania) – 46.3%
- Fiji Airways (Fiji) – 43.2%
- Tropic Air (Belize) – 43.1%
- Manta Air (Maldives) – 42.3%
- Airkenya Express (Kenya) – 42.2%
- Proflight Zambia (Zambia) – 40%
