With more than five million U.S. travelers relying on wheelchairs, air travel can be a daunting experience. In 2024 alone, nearly 890,000 wheelchairs and scooters were boarded onto U.S. airlines. When traveling with a wheelchair, it is always important to make this known to your airline, along with finding out their protocol for wheelchair assistance and the options available for accessibility when embarking and onboard.
Here at InsureMyTrip, we analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to shed light on airlines that have areas to improve upon for creating a positive and helpful environment for wheelchair users. This research looked at how many wheelchairs and scooters were mishandled in 2024, along with looking at negative and positive opinions based on reviews mentioning ‘wheelchair’ and social media sentiment.
Worst Airlines for Wheelchair Users
The top five with the lowest scores are as follows:
- Frontier Airlines – 2.19 overall
- American Airlines Network – 3.25 overall
- Spirit Airlines – 4.49 overall
- Allegiant Air – 5.03 overall
- United Airlines Network – 5.22 overall
Frontier Airlines has the lowest score of 2.19, with 535 mishandled wheelchairs or scooters which is equal to 1.76% of 30,448 boarded devices. It also had 83% negative sentiment, while 51% of reviews containing ‘wheelchair’ received a 1-star rating.
In second place is the American Airlines Network, with an overall score of 3.25. In 2024, they mishandled 2,635 wheelchairs and scooters out of 161,287 boarded mobility devices. They also have a relatively high negative sentiment score of 59% while also having 25% of their reviews containing ‘wheelchair’ rated at 1-star.
Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air come in third and fourth respectively. Spirit Airlines mishandled 576 wheelchairs and scooters, with the largest percentage of mishandled mobility devices at 2.07%. Allegiant Air mishandled 207 out of the 27,575 wheelchairs and scooters it transported in 2024. Despite having a lower mishandling rate, Allegiant received a higher proportion of 1-star reviews mentioning wheelchairs, at 32%, compared to 28% for Spirit Airlines.
In fifth position is United Airlines Network, which mishandled 1,511 wheelchairs and scooters out of 156,528, which comes out to 0.97% of the total boarded devices.
Best Airlines for Wheelchair Users
The top five with the highest scores are:
- JetBlue Airways – 7.44 overall
- Delta Air Lines Network – 6.89 overall
- Alaska Airlines Network – 6.65 overall
- Hawaiian Airlines – 6.36 overall
- Southwest Airlines – 6.34 overall
JetBlue is in first place as the best airline overall for wheelchair users with a positive sentiment of 97% – the highest of all the airlines in the study. In addition to this, 51% of travel reviews including ‘wheelchair’ were 5-star reviews. In 2024, the airline mishandled 464 wheelchairs and scooters, which equates to 1.59% of all boarded mobility devices.
Delta Air Lines Network is second with the lowest percentage of mishandled mobility devices in 2024. Just 0.63% (464) of their 155,000 boarded wheelchairs and scooters were mishandled. From 901 reviews, they had 436 reviews containing ‘wheelchair’ that received 5-stars.
In third position, is Alaska Airlines Network which mishandled 547 wheelchairs and scooters in 2024, out of 35,430. Overall, they had a positive sentiment rating of 58%, while 58% of reviews mentioning ‘wheelchair’ are 5-star ratings.
Hawaiian and Southwest Airlines are in fourth and fifth position respectively, with Hawaiian Airlines having 66% positive sentiment online, while Southwest has a 50% split for both positive and negative. Hawaiian Airlines also had 37% of their reviews mentioning ‘wheelchair’ at 5-star, while Southwest Airlines had 61%. Hawaiian Airlines did have a lower number of boarded wheelchairs and scooters. Of the14,997 mobility devices boarded only 156 were reported as mishandled, while Southwest had the largest number of boarded mobility devices in the study. In 2024, there were 260,565 mobility devices boarded and 3,744 were reported as mishandled.
Methodology
The airlines included within this study were taken from the Air Travel Consumer Report by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which was also used to source the number of mishandled wheelchairs and scooters. This was then calculated against the total number of boarded wheelchairs and scooters to gain further insight into the percentage of mishandlings to the overall number across 2024. Each data point consists of the latest research available from reputable sources. The data was standardized using minmax normalization. The minmax normalization value is multiplied by 10 to create a score (between 0-10). A score of 10 is always the best result, while a score of 0 is the worst. Each airline is ranked, higher scores equating to airlines that reflect their positive treatment of wheelchair users.
Sources
Social Media Sentimentality Percentage (excluding neutral sentiment) – https://brand24.com/
Airline Reviews containing ‘wheelchair’ – https://www.tripadvisor.com/
Number of Mishandled Wheelchairs and Scooters – https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/air-travel-consumer-report-archive
