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Best airlines for 2025
Passengers told us about more than 9,000 flights to rate British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair, Tui, Jet2 and other carriers
According to Ryanair, summer 2025 is set to be the worst ever for Air Traffic Control flight delays and cancellations.
However, we know from our analysis of punctuality statistics that the best airlines are simply better at getting you to your destination on time. We also know, from our annual survey of thousands of Which? members and members of the general public, that some airlines are much better at helping customers out when delays and cancellations do strike.
This year, for the first time, British Airways has been ranked at the bottom of our table for long-haul flights. It also had a poor record for last minute cancellations.
Ryanair is back at the bottom of the short-haul airlines table again - after a couple of years of being rated above Wizz Air. Jet2 has once again been rated the UK’s best short-haul airline. It gets five stars for customer service.
Thousands of passengers gave us their views on everything from cabin cleanliness and boarding, to customer service and the booking experience.
USING THE TABLE In Nov-Dec 2024, 7,828 Which? members and other travellers told us about 9,325 flights last year. Sample size in brackets. A dash (-) means too few responses to give a rating. On-time/Last-minute cancellations Percentage of all scheduled flights departing from the UK within 15 minutes of time due, according to the CAA (Oct 2023 to Sept 2024) or cancelled within 24 hours of scheduled departure in the same period. Seat pitch Distance between two rows in standard economy (measure of legroom) from aerolopa.com. Customer score Combines overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend the airline.
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The difference between Jet2 and its rivals starts at the booking stage. With Ryanair or Wizz you need a calculator to work out whether you’re better off choosing to add cabin bags and seat selection separately, or whether to choose a more expensive ticket that includes them.
With Jet2, cabin bags are included and families are almost always seated together, without having to pay for seat selection. That doesn’t just save money, it makes booking much less hassle.
92% of passengers said the booking experience with Jet2 was good, compared with just 53% for Wizz.
72% of Jet2 passengers said staff were helpful during delays, but that figure was just 48% for Ryanair.
Crucially, Jet2 was also much less likely than most of its rivals to cancel flights at the last minute. Only 0.2% of flights were cancelled less than 24-hours before departure, compared with 2% for British Airways.
All of this translates to an excellent customer score of 80%, five stars for customer service and a string of impressive four-star ratings.
Why Ryanair (and Wizz) are the worst short-haul airlines
The unique selling point of Ryanair – like its great imitator Wizz – is supposed to be that it’s cheap, but both airlines got a mediocre two stars for value for money.
That’s probably because the price, if you want to take a cabin bag, will be a lot higher than the first figure you’re shown. A Wizz Air passenger complained they felt ‘fleeced’ when they saw how much itcost to actually check in a suitcase.
Even if you do get a good deal, the ratings for seat comfort, boarding experience, food, cabin environment and cleanliness are all worse than most of their rivals – particularly for Ryanair with its three dismal one-star ratings. ‘The cabin still had rubbish from a previous flight,’ was just one complaint.
Over the past couple of years Ryanair has loudly criticised air traffic authorities and aircraft manufacturers for all the delays and cancellations we’ve seen since Covid. However, it appears to us that it hasn’t taken the logical step of making sure that passengers are protected from the consequences of these inevitable problems.
For example, 47% of Ryanair passengers told us that the company did not provide an explanation for the reason for delays or an explanation of their rights. For Jet2 that figure was just 26%.
What went wrong with British Airways
British Airways’ customer score of 62% for long-haul and 57% for short-haul is very similar to the scores it’s had in previous years.
It’s better than the 50% (long-haul) and 52% (short-haul) that it got in 2018. The problem is that other airlines are now rated more highly than BA. The best airlines in our survey get scores of 80%.
BA is rated not just below the best carriers such as Jet2, Norwegian and SAS for short-haul, and Singapore, Etihad and Emirates for long-haul, it’s also below easyJet, Tui and US airlines such as American and United.
For short-haul, boarding, seat comfort and food and drink are all rated just two stars. BA told us that passengers are ‘seeing the benefit of our £7bn investment programme, with operational performance improving by 18% over the last 12 months’. But it’s yet to match the performance of most of its rivals in our survey.
Should I book with easyJet?
The good news for travellers who booked with easyJet in the past year was that its last-minute cancellation rate improved from a dreadful 2% to 0.9% this time.
It did better than its great rival Ryanair on every other metric – customer service, booking process, boarding, food and drink and value for money were all rated more highly on easyJet than Ryanair.
However, a customer score of 61% was a lot worse than the best short-haul carriers. Boarding, seat comfort and food and drink were particular let-downs, with just two stars.
There were also many comments in our survey about its policy of charging for cabin bags. ‘The price of our fares was quite a lot higher than advertised,’ complained one flyer, ‘because we chose to select seats and take a large cabin bag each.’
People who had to pay extra at their gate because their bag was too big were particularly annoyed. As with Ryanair, some passengers complained about ‘overly aggressive’ baggage size checks.
Verdict: Choose Jet2 if you can, but easyJet is a better choice than Ryanair or Wizz.
USING THE TABLE In Nov-Dec 2024, 7,828 Which? members and other travellers told us about 9,325 flights last year. Sample size in brackets. A dash (-) means too few responses to give a rating. On-time/Last-minute cancellations Percentage of all scheduled flights departing from the UK within 15 minutes of time due, according to the CAA (Oct 2023 to Sept 2024) or cancelled within 24 hours of scheduled departure in the same period. Seat pitch Distance between two rows in standard economy (measure of legroom) from aerolopa.com. Customer score Combines overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend the airline.
Why Emirates is the Which? Recommended Provider long-haul carrier
The three airlines at the top of our long-haul table – Singapore, Etihad and Emirates – stand out for fabulous service, sleek, modern cabins and decent food and drink. Singapore is the only airline other than Jet2 to get more than 80% across our two tables.
However, we’ve named Emirates as our Which? Recommended Provider because, unlike the other two carriers, it has confirmed that it won’t automatically cancel your return flight if you miss your outbound flight.
Most long-haul airlines have what’s known as a ‘no show’ clause, which means they’ll cancel your return ticket if you don’t show up for the outbound trip – even if that’s just because you missed the plane.
Emirates has said that as long as passengers let it know that they’ve missed the outbound flight, they can still use the return leg.
Should I book with Virgin Atlantic?
One surprising reason why it can pay to fly with Virgin Atlantic is simply that it’s British. That means that even when you fly from a US airport you’re covered by the strong consumer rights protections that we kept after leaving the EU.
If a Virgin Atlantic plane flying from New York to London is severely delayed, you could be entitled to £520 per person. If a United, Delta or American Airlines flight making the same trip has the same length of delay, you probably won't be entitled to anything.
Virgin Atlantic also stands out as much better than its British rival BA. Virgin comes out on top for customer service, seat comfort, boarding, food and drink, cabin environment and value for money. British Airways also has a worse record for last-minute cancellations.
Verdict: Yes, in the case of Virgin it makes sense to buy British.
What makes an airline a Which? Recommended Provider?
In November-December 2024, Which? members told us about 9,325 flights in the past two years. Only airlines rated by at least 40 respondents are included.
Which? Recommended Providers (WRPs) are those that achieved the best customer scores, but that's not all. Airlines with above-average numbers of cancellations are not eligible to be WRPs. We also keep an eye on customer service, value for money and – as mentioned above – whether or not airlines have a ‘no show’ clause.
SAS, Singapore and Etihad all missed out on being WRPs because of their ‘no show’ clause. Virgin Atlantic has a similar ‘no show’ clause to Emirates – it won’t automatically cancel your return flight if you miss the outbound. But it missed out on being a WRP because its customer score was lower than the best airlines and its last-minute cancellation rate was 1.6%.
