It's a traveler's worst-case scenario: You board the plane after a delay only to be trapped on the runway indefinitely. You might as well take to Twitter to express your frustrations.
Luminoso, a text analysis startup, researched and analyzed mentions of the top airlines to find out which ones are the best to fly with. The company read more than 157,000 tweets that directly mentioned the five most popular airline handles from August, the busiest travel month of the year.
Virgin America, JetBlue, Delta, United and American Airlines are the five most tweeted airlines. Many airlines were not included in the study, but Luminoso says it made its selections "based on combination of market share (Delta, United, American) and online customer sentiment (Virgin, JetBlue)."
Luminoso analyzed nine categories to determine which airlines ranked the best and worst. The categories included: customer service, crew, delays and cancellations, entertainment, seating, security, charges and fees and overall experience.
Virgin America had the highest number of positive responses, with many comments praising its customer service and low number of delays and cancellations.
United was ranked the worst airline, coming in last place in delays and cancellations, luggage, charges and fees. The airlines came in second to last for entertainment and seating as well.
A separate study from Airfarewatchdog conducted earlier this year found that Delta ranked the best airline and United was again ranked the worst. The airlines were ranked based on cancellations, on-time arrivals, luggage, denied boarding and customer satisfaction.
Delta moved from sixth place last year to the best airline in the study this year, most improving on its customer service. Take a look at some complaining and praising tweets.
