10 Best UK Airlines – Top Carrier Rankings by AirAdvisor for 2025

Explore the best airlines in the UK in 2025 with the comprehensive AirAdvisor rating. Discover the UK’s #1 airline, along with the others that make the top 10.

Amy Lancelotte

By:  Amy Lancelotte

Last Updated:  February 19, 2026

Reviewed by:  Joanna Teljeur

Five people, 10 airlines, 9 categories, 30 different factors, and 3 weeks of time. This is what went into our research and calculations to determine once and for all the top 10 airlines in the UK for 2025.

We analysed:

• Almost 1.5 million different flights.
• 581,846 reviews from 10 sources.
• Over 35 different aviation awards.
• 65 passenger plane accidents between 2023 and 2024.

The result is a comprehensive list that ranks all the UK-based airlines against 9 categories. Spoiler alert – there are a few ties. Now, let’s see who came out on top (and bottom):

The Top 5 Airlines in the UK

Each airline could receive a total of 90 points (10 points per individual category).

1

British Airways – Number 1 Airline in the UK

Most Brits have probably flown British Airways at one time or another, so it’s good to know that BA is actually the best airline in the United Kingdom. In 2024, British Airways boarded almost 40 million passengers. But even with all these extra flights and people and more opportunities for things to go wrong, British Airways manages to stay ahead of the competitors.

71/90

As the UK’s flag carrier airline, BA stands out in these categories:

• Best for family and pet travel.
• Top scores for professional reviews.
• Most comfortable airline in the UK.

1

Virgin Atlantic – Number 1 Airline in the UK (surprise, it’s a draw!)

Tied with BA as the best airline in the UK, according to our AirAdvisor Airline Ranking, is Virgin Atlantic. Virgin is consistent and scores well overall, even though it doesn’t top many individual categories.

71/90

In a somewhat surprising finding, Virgin Atlantic is the second-cheapest airline in the UK and has managed to beat out all the typical low-cost carriers (except Wizz Air) operating in the country. Virgin also scores in the top 3 for comfort and professional reviews. It’s among the safest airlines in the UK (zero accidents) and is ideal for family travel.

Virgin has a relatively good combined on-time flight average for 2023 and 2024 at 73.11%, even though that means that over a quarter of their flights don’t arrive as scheduled. But in a country where delayed flights are common, this number is quite good. 

Virgin Atlantic is a relatively small airline when you compare it to others in the UK, but they still managed to transport over 5.6 million passengers in 2024 to well over 100 exciting destinations. 

Virgin Atlantic Highlights:

• Best for airport lounge reviews.
• Top 3 for flight reliability
• Top rating for family travel.

3

TUI UK – Number 3 Airline in the UK

As the third-best UK airline, TUI Airways does a lot of things right. The airline is great for comfort, safety, and family travel. But it does fall short in one of the important categories – reliability. In fact, we had no choice but to assign TUI UK the title of the worst UK airline for on-time flight percentages and cancellations in 2023, as they did not publish their data.

60/90

 

For 2024, the company’s on-time percentage was published, but it was also the worst of all 10 airlines – 55.4%. That means nearly half of TUI flights don’t arrive on time. 

TUI UK Summary:

• Among the best UK airlines for safety.
• The second most affordable UK airline.
• High customer reputation score from reviews (2nd place overall).

4

Jet2 – Number 4 Airline in the UK

Jet2 is the UK’s third-largest airline that predominantly focuses on leisure and charter flights. Looking to take a vacation? Jet2 is a great option as they rank fourth on the AirAdvisor top 10 UK airline list, which isn’t bad when you’re known for your budget ways.

59/90

 

In 2024, Jet2 carried less than half the passengers of British Airways (17.72 million) and was our most reliable airline overall for the second year in a row. Add to this a top ranking in the customer reputation category, and you can see why this discount carrier ranks so high. 

The funny thing, though, is that Jet2 is actually the most expensive airline we profiled, with the highest cost per seat mile of the airlines where financial data was available. So, don’t always assume that low-cost airlines are cheaper!

Jet2 Key Points:

• Highest for customer reputation.
• Best reliability in the UK.
• The most expensive UK-based airline.

5

EasyJet – Number 5 Airline in the UK

If we’re strictly speaking about passenger volume, easyJet is the largest UK airline, more than doubling British Airways’ numbers with over 90 million travellers in 2024. 

55/90

 

On the AirAdvisor top UK airline list, easyJet doesn’t fare too well (or too poorly). They are right in the middle, Goldilocks style.

EasyJet at a Glance:

• The second most reliable airline in the country.
• Good score for professional reviews.
• The worst for travelling with pets.

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The Next 5 Best-Ranked UK Airlines

Now that we’ve been through the top 5 airlines, it’s time to venture into the bottom 5. Generally speaking, these are lesser-known, smaller airlines that likely find it hard to compete with the giants on the top half of our list. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth using – here’s what they have going for them:

#6 Loganair

Loganair is affectionately known as Scotland’s airline and is the UK’s largest regional airline by both fleet size and passenger volume. Loganair scores poorly for price as the 2024 numbers were not available, but it is a safe choice and well-reviewed by passengers (3rd place).

This regional carrier still manages to fly to over 40 different destinations stretching from Norway to Germany to Ireland, plus many destinations throughout the UK. If your chosen destination matches up with Loganair’s routes, you can do a lot worse than this Scottish favourite.

The Loganair Highlights:

• The third most popular, based on customer reviews.
• Top score for safety – no accidents.
• Average for flight comfort.

TOTAL SCORE: 49/90

#8 Aurigny Air Services

Aurigny Air Services operates out of the Channel Islands, and more specifically, Guernsey, and places eighth on our list. The airline scores about where you’d expect in most categories, except for customer reputation. Based on customer reviews, Aurigny scores above average and earns the number 4 spot in this category.

Unfortunately, often due to poor weather conditions in the Channel Islands, Aurigny is not a reliable choice. The only UK airline with a lower reliability score was Eastern Airways.

The Scoop on Aurigny:

• The second-least reliable UK airline.
• Above average for customer reputation.

TOTAL SCORE: 40/90

#10 Eastern Airways – Also the Worst UK Airline

Eastern Airways is another small, regional airline based in North Lincolnshire. Despite being small, passengers can fly to top destinations in the UK and even as far as Paris Orly Airport. Although it stands with Blue Islands as the worst-scoring airline on the list, Eastern scores well in the categories of comfort and safety. 

Eastern Airways also offers charter flights in addition to regular domestic and international routes. They may just have the flight configuration that you need, so don’t let their low score throw you too much.

Noteworthy Eastern Airways Details:

• The least reliable airline in the United Kingdom.
• Not good for pet travel.

TOTAL SCORE: 37/90

Most Reliable UK Airline with the Fewest Disruptions

In 2024, Loganair was the UK airline with the most on-time flights – 75.7% of them. But unfortunately, the carrier’s relatively high instances of cancelled flights (3.7%) mean that it is not the UK’s most reliable airline. 

That honour, overall, goes to Jet2, which, in addition to decent on-time percentages when we combine 2023 and 2024, took the top position for the smallest percentage of cancelled flights. In both years, it was a mere 0.02%, by far the lowest of the bunch. For context, in 2024, the highest flight cancellation rate was from Eastern Airways at 12.2%.

It’s worth noting that easyJet and Virgin Atlantic took second and third place, respectively, in the reliability category.

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Most Comfortable Airline for the Best In-Flight Experience

Taking all categories into account, British Airways is the most comfortable UK airline. BA offers all the services you could want for a comfortable flight. These options include in-flight entertainment, complimentary snacks and beverages, comfortable seating, onboard Wi-Fi, and comfort items like pillows and blankets.

TUI also offers these items, but comes in second because the wi-fi is only for their entertainment network, and the pillows and blankets only apply to premium seats.

Safest Airlines in the UK

This category is definitely an important one because every airline wants to be the safest, and every passenger wants to fly a safe airline. Well, there’s nothing but good news here. According to IATA (the International Air Transport Association), there were zero accidents in 2024 with any of the 10 UK airlines we examined. The same goes for 2023.

So, you can choose any of the airlines mentioned here, and the safety record for the last 2 years will be exactly the same (and perfect).

Top 5 Airlines by Customer Reputation Score

Arguably, one of the best measurements of overall satisfaction is the customer review, and airlines are no different from conventional businesses like stores and restaurants. If you want to get an overview of the passenger experience on any airline, read the reviews. 

And that’s exactly what we did. Here are the top 5 airlines based on their customer reputation score:

One thing that stands out here is that we see that some of the smaller regional airlines rank higher than powerhouses like easyJet and British Airways. Bigger definitely isn’t always better!

Best Budget Carriers in the UK

Price is an important factor for many travellers, especially as flights may seem a little expensive right now. So, if you need to stick to a budget, the best airlines in the UK to choose from are Wizz Air, with a 2024 passenger revenue per seat mile of £0.00417, and Virgin Atlantic, with a passenger seat mile revenue of £0.00523.

There is a caveat here, as we could not obtain detailed info on the average revenue per seat mile for Aurigny, Loganair, Blue Islands, Eastern, or TUI.

Best 5 Airlines for Lounge Reviews

Here are the best airlines (UK-based) for lounges that you can use before your flight:

Both Virgin Atlantic and British Airways score well in this category, and even well-known budget airlines make the top 5. If relaxing in an airport lounge is an important part of your travel experience, you can’t go wrong flying Virgin Atlantic and using the Clubhouse.

The Most Pet-Friendly UK Airlines

No UK airline currently allows passengers to carry their pets with them in the cabin. That said, 5 airlines do allow pets to travel as cargo.

Because British Airways offers a curated cargo experience for your pets, it’s the best option overall in the UK for pet travel. The only catch is that the actual transport is handled through a different company, either Pet Air UK or IAG Cargo, so you may not end up on the same flight as your pet.

The other airlines that allow pets to travel as cargo include Aurigny Air Services (only on the route between Guernsey and Southampton), Blue Islands, Loganair, and TUI.

AirAdvisor Airline Rating: Carriers Ranked

Criteria and Methodology

In all, we established 9 unique categories to get the overall AirAdvisor Top Airline Score. We used data from 2023 and 2024 to keep everything as current as possible – we all know that things can change quickly.

• Reliability – Using data from OAG, which is a UK-based worldwide travel data provider, we reviewed stats from all of 2023 and 2024. For each airline, we calculated the on-time flight percentage and the percentage of flight cancellations. 
• Comfort – For the comfort score, we researched the individual airline policies, and each criterion received a yes or no answer. We judged comfort based on the seats, wi-fi availability, access to pillows and blankets, in-flight entertainment, and complimentary food or beverages (non-alcoholic). Any airline that has these services or items scores better than the ones that don’t.
• Safety – This category is pretty cut and dry. The airline either had a safety incident in 2024, according to IATA, or it didn’t.
• Price – Using publicly available data from the airlines themselves, we calculated the passenger revenue per seat mile in 2024. This is the airline’s reported passenger revenue divided by the total available annual seat miles. Lower numbers mean lower average prices for passengers. Data was unavailable for Loganair, TUI, Eastern Airways, Aurigny Air Services, and Blue Islands, so these carriers automatically received the fewest points.
• Customer Reputation – To get our customer reputation score, we analysed reviews from 9 different sites, including TripAdvisor, Kayak, Yelp, Consumer Affairs, Better Business Bureau, Airlinequality.com, Trust Pilot, and Influenster.com. We also consolidated all the published Google reviews. Using all of these review sites amounted to 581,846 reviews, which is a fantastic cross-section.
• Airline Lounges – Does the airline have a branded lounge or not? If yes, we used the average customer review score to rank them. For this, we included over 28,000 additional lounge reviews.
• Professional Reviews – The professional reviews component focuses on where the UK airlines are placed on the 2024 World's Top 100 Airlines List. We also accounted for other prestigious awards, like The World’s Best Low-Cost Airline in 2024, World’s Best In-Flight Entertainment in 2024, and the World’s Best Cabin Crew in 2024, plus many others.
• Family Travel – Family travel is also based on yes or no responses when it comes to the availability of family seating, kids’ meals, complimentary seat selection for children under a certain age, in-flight entertainment, and free stroller check-in. The more yesses, the better the airline scored overall. 
• Travelling with Pets – We addressed the questions of whether or not you can take your pet with you in the cabin or can place them in the cargo hold on your next flight. We also examined whether or not the airline’s lounge (if they have one) would welcome pets.

Many of the UK’s regional airlines score lower on the list, which makes sense – it’s hard for the little airline to compete with the huge national and budget carriers. But these airlines are still useful for flying certain routes (especially to the Channel Islands) and tend to have decent customer reputation scores.

Everyone values different things, so the best UK airline for one person might not be for someone else. If there are specific categories that are important to you, like price or comfort, base your purchase decisions on those instead of the overall score. Otherwise, to get the best overall flight and travel experience, determine your route and search starting with British Airways or Virgin, and then work your way down the 2025 AirAdvisor Top Airline Score list.

FAQ

Author:

Amy Lancelotte

Job/Position: Senior Writer & Content Strategist

Amy Lancelotte is a Senior Content Writer and editorial contributor at AirAdvisor with over seven years of experience producing research-based articles for international audiences. Her work focuses on travel, aviation, and air passenger rights, with an emphasis on factual accuracy, verified data, and clear, reader-first explanations.

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