Flightright Index 2025: Ranking of worst European airlines

I would be a little careful about what you want out of an airline and who did the rankings.

They scored three things. 1) Reliability (on time or not), 2) How quickly they paid Flightright when there was a delay claim. (important to this organization as collecting on claims is their business) and 3) Customer satisfaction in which the questions in the survey had nothing to do with the flight, but centered on response if something went wrong (delays again).

• Out of 20 airlines only 2 (Turkish and Iberia) were more reliable than THIRD FROM LAST Ryan Air according to the scores
• Out of 20 airlines only 3 airlines (British, Lufthansa and Austrian) had a higher Customer Satisfaction score than DEAD LAST Finnair.
• Out of 20 airlines FIRST ranked Discover only excelled in one category; paying out for delays (which is good because their on time reliability didn’t even make the top 50% of the airlines).
  

So if you want to get there on time fly Turkish or Iberia or Ryan.
If you want to paid because you didnt fly Turkish or Iberia or Ryan and your flight was late, then fly Discover.
If you are the type that gets frustrated easily with customer service, fly Finnair or British or Lufthansa or Austrian.

https://www.flightright.com/flightright-index (in English)

Another Steve, dont get me wrong, these things can be sort of fun and there is some value if you dig a bit. For instance, if you have a flight and you want to make sure you get there on time, then you fly Turkish or Ibera or Ryan if they are amoung the affordable options.

What is sort of curious is the low Ryan score for how well they worked with the company on delay claims. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but Ryan doesnt do any flights with connections. So I guess there could still be a claim for something related to a late flight but they are going to be few and rare. So Ryan got their overall score busted by something that may rarely happen, while Discovery gets a better score because bad things happen to them fairly frequently but they settle with the company quickly?

Another Steve, "Numbers and Facts". There are people out that that think numbers are objective data. Not in real world applications they arent. Even the concept of a "Fact" falters in real world applications. I wish it were true, but ..... life experience proves differently.

I am ashamed to admit that I hard copied this from a Google AI response to me looking for a quote:

"The phrase "figures don't lie, but liars can figure" is a well-known saying. It highlights the idea that while numerical data itself is objective, it can be manipulated or presented in a misleading way to support a particular argument or narrative. This can be done by selecting specific data, using deceptive calculations, or omitting crucial context."

The only thing that I might argue is "it can be manipulated ..." should read "it is always manipulated ..." Sometimes for nefarious reasons and sometimes just personal bias showing through.

In this case it might be argued that the FIRST PLACE airline was chosen in hopes of generating more income for the company that prepared the data. But again, in all fairness I do enjoy these surveys because they make me think and question. So thank you MarkK for posting.

I take all of these "worst and best rankings" with a grain of salt. Meaning, I mostly ignore them.

I have flown Finnair a few times and only once had a problem. I got caught up in the ongoing strikes at Helsinki airport and my flight was canceled. Finnair rerouted me the same day and I received actual money compensation a few days later. I thought is was done fairly efficiently considering the circumstances.

Perhaps Finnair takes care of their direct customers compensation requests before third parties.

In this case it might be argued that the FIRST PLACE airline was chosen in hopes of generating more income for the company that prepared the data.

Poor conspiracy theory imo. First and second place are Lufthansa Group airlines. I know one of C-level from central IT personally - would never do that.

The best airline is the one that gets you where you are going, on time, safely, on that day.
It could be the worse airline for someone else.

One third of the score is: “Here we examined how quickly the individual airlines pay Flightright any compensation due as a result of flight delays and cancellations.” The message airlines might perceive in this survey is that if they work with FlightRight when they come for money they will do better on the survey which is good for the airline's marketing. The airline wins in marketing and Flightright wins in their recovery statitistics marketing. The airlines might also perceive that if they work against Flightright when they come for money that the survey question might tilt the table and the airline might get labeled to be among the “Worst Airlines in Europe” and end up all over the internet as such. Eliminate the one question, then look at the survey. The rankings change quite a bit.