Air Travel: The Top Domestic Airlines of 2025

Air travel is a remarkable feat of modern technology that allows us to travel long distances in a short amount of time. It’s no surprise that we have come to expect high standards of timeliness, safety, customer service, and amenities from domestic airlines. In the 2025 World’s Best Awards survey, Travel + Leisure readers voted for their favorite domestic airlines, and the results are in.

How Voting Works

Every year, Travel + Leisure asks its readers to share their opinions on the best travel experiences around the world. This includes hotels, resorts, cities, islands, cruise ships, spas, and, of course, airlines. This year, nearly 180,000 readers participated in the survey, casting over 657,000 votes for over 8,700 properties.

Airlines were rated on four criteria:

1. Cabin comfort
2. In-flight service
3. Customer service
4.

Readers could choose from five options for each characteristic: excellent, above average, average, below average, or poor. The final scores are an average of these responses.

What Readers Loved

There was a clear winner in the ranking of best domestic airlines, with a lesser-known public charter company taking the top spot by a significant margin. This airline was the only one of its kind on the list, which included major U. S. airlines and a few established low-cost carriers.

Among the “big four” U. S. airlines (American, Southwest, Delta, and United), Delta Air Lines was the only one to make it into the top 5, solidifying its position as one of the nation’s top domestic carriers for the second year in a row.

One reader praised Delta for consistent good service, both on the flight and at the gate, as well as for their digital entertainment options and loyalty programs.

The Winner: JSX

The fact that JSX scored in the 90s on the survey’s 1-to-100 scale speaks volumes about this domestic carrier, which also claimed the top spot in the 2024 World’s Best Awards.

JSX is a public charter airline that specializes in point-to-point flights. They primarily operate out of smaller airports that are not often serviced by major airlines, offering routes across the western U. S. as well as some connecting flights to Florida, the East Coast, and Mexico.

As one reader described, flying with JSX is almost like flying on a private jet. The staff is friendly, check-in is easy, and they provide assistance with boarding and luggage. JSX also offers “frictionless” TSA-approved security and business-class amenities on board, along with free Starlink Wi-Fi.

The Full List

1. JSX Reader Score: 92. 29
2. Hawaiian Airlines WBA Hall of Fame honoree. Reader Score: 79. 92
3. Breeze Airways Reader Score: 78. 63
4.