US Airline Complaint Statistics: DOT Data for 2026
Air travellers filed 51,728 complaint cases with the US Department of Transportation (DOT) between January and July 2026, about airlines, foreign carriers and travel agents. Refund disputes are once again the largest single category, six years after the pandemic turned them into the main reason people complained.
Why this matters: complaints to DOT are the main public, airline-by-airline record of what goes wrong for passengers after they book, and they are the raw material for DOT's enforcement cases. DOT has changed how it counts twice since 2023, and in 2026 it began letting passengers choose the complaint category that analysts used to assign, so year-on-year headlines often compare different things. This page lines up the official figures from DOT's Air Travel Consumer Report (ATCR), its annual and monthly consumer submission data, DOT press releases and enforcement orders, and the DOT Office of Inspector General (OIG), and it flags every point where the measure changes.
Key US Airline Complaint Statistics at a Glance
- DOT received 51,728 air travel complaint cases from January to July 2026, including 34,931 about US airlines.
Source: DOT, Air Travel Consumer Report, August and September 2026 - 2020 holds the record with 102,560 complaints, almost seven times the 15,342 received in 2019.
Source: DOT press release, 12 April 2023; DOT ATCR, February 2021 - DOT counted 97,906 consumer submissions in 2024, slightly above the 96,853 of 2023.
Source: DOT, 2024 Annual Consumer Submission Data, 2025 - 2025 was split across two systems: 49,502 submissions from January to July and 29,080 complaint cases from August to December.
Source: DOT, Consumer Submission Data 2025 and August to December 2025 data, 2026 - Refunds were the top complaint category from January to June 2026, with 12,557 of 43,184 cases (29.1%).
Source: DOT, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 - Flight schedule problems made up 9,477 cases (21.9%), led by 3,744 about cancellations.
Source: DOT, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 - Refunds made up 87.3% of all complaints in 2020 (89,511 of 102,560), against 10.3% in 2019.
Source: DOT ATCR, February 2021 and February 2022 - American Airlines had the most complaint cases of any US airline from January to June 2026: 9,046, or 31.2% of the US-airline total.
Source: DOT, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 - By AirAdvisor's calculation, Spirit Airlines had the highest rate among DOT's 9 reporting carriers, 27.8 complaint cases per 100,000 passengers, and Southwest the lowest at 1.5 (January to June 2026); Spirit stopped flying on 2 May 2026, which pushes its rate up.
Source: AirAdvisor calculation from DOT ATCR data, August 2026 - Foreign airlines accounted for 12,042 complaint cases (27.9%) from January to June 2026, led by Turkish Airlines with 1,050.
Source: DOT, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 - March 2026 was the busiest month since DOT's new complaint system launched, with 8,571 complaint cases (just ahead of July 2026 at 8,544).
Source: DOT, Air Travel Consumer Report, May and September 2026 - Disability complaints reached 2,685 in 2023, the highest yearly count from 2019 to 2024.
Source: DOT press release, 5 July 2024 - DOT's $140 million penalty against Southwest in December 2023 was 30 times larger than any earlier consumer protection penalty.
Source: DOT press release, 18 December 2023 - DOT fined American Airlines $50 million in October 2024 over its treatment of passengers who use wheelchairs.
Source: DOT press release, 23 October 2024 - DOT assessed more than $155 million in civil penalties against 14 airlines for failing to give prompt refunds, according to its Inspector General.
Source: DOT OIG, Report AV2025045, 17 September 2025
How Many Air Travel Complaints Does DOT Receive Each Year?
The record year is still 2020, when pandemic cancellations and refund disputes drove complaints to 102,560. The colours below mark the three ways DOT has counted since then, so read across a colour change with care.
Source: DOT ATCR, February 2021 (2019); DOT press release, 12 April 2023 (2020 to 2022); DOT press release, 5 July 2024 (2023); DOT 2024 Annual Consumer Submission Data (2024); DOT Consumer Submission Data, January to July 2025, and August to December 2025 submission data (2025); DOT ATCR, August and September 2026 (January to July 2026). 2025 bar combines two counting methods.
Complaints fell to 49,991 in 2021, then rose 55.3% to 77,656 in 2022. From June 2023, DOT counted "submissions", which add inquiries and opinions to complaints: 96,853 in 2023, the highest on record apart from 2020 according to DOT, and 97,906 in 2024. On DOT's own numbers, 2024 was the post-pandemic high, just ahead of 2023. For 2025 there is no single like-for-like total: 49,502 submissions arrived under the old system from January to July and 29,080 complaint cases under the new one from August to December, or 78,582 combined.
Three counting eras. Up to May 2023, DOT published complaints broken down by category. From June 2023 to July 2025, it published "submissions" (complaints, inquiries and opinions) without a category breakdown. Since DOT launched its Aviation Complaint, Enforcement, and Reporting System (ACERS) on 1 August 2025, it reports complaint cases separately from compliments and comments, and from the January 2026 data it breaks them into 12 categories that passengers pick themselves instead of DOT analysts. DOT notes that filing a complaint does not mean the airline broke the law.
Monthly Complaint Cases Since DOT's New System Launched
ACERS gives the first like-for-like monthly series in more than two years. Monthly volumes swung from about 4,500 to more than 8,500 cases.
Source: DOT, August to December 2025 submission data (April 2026); DOT ATCR editions covering January to July 2026 data (published March to September 2026). DOT revises some monthly counts, so the seven monthly figures add up to slightly more than its January to June total (43,184) plus July.
The quietest month was October 2025 with 4,513 cases, and the busiest was March 2026 with 8,571, just ahead of July 2026 at 8,544. Complaint cases averaged 5,816 a month from August to December 2025 and 7,390 a month from January to July 2026. Twelve months of data is not yet enough to separate seasonal peaks from a lasting rise.
What Passengers Complain About Most in 2026
Across US airlines, foreign airlines and travel agents, refunds led with 12,557 cases from January to June 2026. Flight schedule problems came second with 9,477, and baggage third with 6,459.
Source: DOT, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 (Table 2, January to June 2026). Categories are selected by the consumer.
Inside the flight schedule category, cancellations drew 3,744 cases, delays 2,991, missed connections 991 and tarmac delays 462. Baggage cases, at 15.0% of the total, sit alongside the airline-reported mishandling rates in our baggage mishandling statistics, and the cancellation cases mirror the patterns in our global flight cancellation data. For US airlines alone the order flips: flight problems lead with 7,505 cases (25.9%), just ahead of refunds with 7,308 (25.2%). Refunds top the overall table because 3,935 of the 12,042 cases about foreign airlines (32.7%) concern refunds.
Flight to or from Europe cancelled or 3+ hours late?Complaining to DOT is one route. If your flight departed the EU or UK, or landed there on an EU or UK airline, EU261 or UK261 may entitle you to up to 600 EUR (520 GBP) when the cause was within the airline's control.Check Your Flight
How the Complaint Mix Has Shifted Since 2019
Before the pandemic, flight problems were the leading complaint and refunds a minor one. In 2020, refunds made up 87.3% of everything DOT received.
Source: DOT ATCR, February 2021 (2019) and February 2022 (2020, 2021); DOT press release, 12 April 2023 (2022); DOT ATCR, August 2026 (January to June 2026). 2022 flight problems include claims for costs linked to flight problems. DOT published no category data for June 2023 to July 2025. Categories up to 2022 were assigned by DOT analysts; 2026 categories are chosen by passengers.
Refunds fell back to 59.1% in 2021 and 25.7% in 2022, when flight problems returned to the top with 31.7%. In January to June 2026, refunds lead again with 29.1%, ahead of flight schedule problems at 21.9%. The OIG found that DOT received more than 139,000 refund complaints from 2020 to 2022. One caution: before the switch, DOT analysts coded complaints, while in ACERS passengers choose the category themselves, and DOT has told airlines that some passengers pick categories their written complaint does not support, one reason it redesigned the complaint form on 10 February 2026.
Which US Airlines Get the Most Complaints?
DOT lists every US airline that drew at least five complaint cases. From January to June 2026, American Airlines had 9,046, followed by Delta Air Lines with 4,534 and United Airlines with 4,524.
Source: DOT, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 (Table 3, January to June 2026). Passengers usually file against the airline brand on their ticket, so counts can include flights run by regional partners; Hawaiian Airlines is included in Alaska Airlines.
Raw counts largely follow size. American was also the biggest of DOT's reporting carriers by passengers, with 101.3 million enplaned in the same period, and our largest North American airlines ranking shows how the carriers compare in size. Frontier Airlines (3,673) and Spirit Airlines (2,053) drew more complaint cases relative to their passenger numbers than the larger carriers, which AirAdvisor's per-passenger calculation in the next chart shows. Each figure is a count of complaints filed with DOT, which describes its complaint data as based on consumer perception.
Complaints per 100,000 Passengers by US Airline
DOT's current tables give counts only, so AirAdvisor divided each reporting carrier's complaint cases by the passengers DOT reports it enplaned from January to June 2026. Spirit Airlines (27.8) and Frontier Airlines (21.1) had the highest rates; Southwest Airlines (1.5) had the lowest.
Source: AirAdvisor calculation from DOT ATCR, August 2026: complaint cases (Table 3, January to June 2026) divided by enplaned passengers in the denied boarding table for reporting marketing carriers (January to June 2026), times 100,000. Covers all 9 carriers DOT reports as marketing carriers, including branded regional partners.
Across the 9 carriers combined, AirAdvisor's calculation gives 6.5 complaint cases per 100,000 passengers, so Southwest's rate was less than a quarter of it and Spirit's more than four times it. Spirit stopped flying on 2 May 2026, so its passenger count covers about four months while complaints kept arriving; 680 of its 2,053 cases were about refunds. JetBlue (9.9) and American (8.9) were the only other carriers above that combined rate. The passenger base excludes inbound international passengers, which raises the rate for airlines with large international networks.
Complaints About Foreign Airlines
Foreign airlines drew 12,042 complaint cases from January to June 2026, 27.9% of the total. Turkish Airlines had the most (1,050), followed by Volaris (909), Air France (821), Qatar Airways (788) and Lufthansa (715).
Source: DOT, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 (Table 4, January to June 2026). DOT lists foreign airlines with at least five complaint cases.
Six of the 15 are based in the EU, Norway or the UK: Air France, Lufthansa, Norse Atlantic Airways, KLM, Iberia and British Airways. Refunds were the largest category for foreign carriers with 3,935 cases, followed by baggage with 2,334. DOT does not publish passenger numbers for foreign airlines in the ATCR, so these counts partly reflect how many US travellers each airline carries, and no rate can be calculated.
Flew a European airline to or from the US?EU261 covers flights leaving the EU on any airline and flights into the EU on an EU airline, so a US to Europe trip can qualify for up to 600 EUR after a 3+ hour delay or a short-notice cancellation. Bag lost as well? The Montreal Convention covers checked baggage up to 1,519 SDR.Check Compensation
Disability and Discrimination Complaints
Civil rights complaints are the one series DOT kept publishing through every change in its system, although since 2026 passengers choose that category themselves. Disability complaints nearly tripled from 905 in 2019 to 2,685 in 2023, then eased to 2,628 in 2024.
Source: DOT ATCR, February 2021 (2019) and February 2022 (2020); DOT press release, 12 April 2023 (2021); DOT press release, 5 July 2024 (2022, 2023); DOT 2024 Annual Consumer Submission Data (2024); DOT ATCR, August 2026 (January to June 2026). 2025 is omitted because it spans two systems.
Discrimination complaints peaked at 223 in 2023 and fell to 127 in 2024. The 364 filed in the first half of 2026 are almost three times the 2024 full-year count, but they come from categories passengers select themselves in ACERS, so the jump may partly reflect the new form. DOT has extended its enforcement pause on four provisions of its wheelchair rule, including airline liability for mishandled wheelchairs, to 30 April 2027.
DOT Enforcement Actions and Fines Against Airlines
Complaints are one input to investigations by DOT's Office of Aviation Consumer Protection (OACP). The table lists selected major penalties DOT announced from 2022 to 2025 and the later orders that changed how they are paid.
| Date | Airline | Issue | Penalty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Nov 2022 | Frontier, Air India, TAP Air Portugal, Aeromexico, El Al, Avianca | Extreme delays in refunding cancelled or changed flights; more than $600 million refunded | $7.25 million in total; Frontier largest at $2.2 million |
| 18 Dec 2023 | Southwest Airlines | Refunds, flight status notices and customer service during the December 2022 holiday meltdown | $140 million |
| 15 Oct 2024 | Lufthansa | Denied boarding to 128 Jewish passengers in Frankfurt in May 2022 | $4 million, then DOT's largest civil rights penalty against an airline |
| 23 Oct 2024 | American Airlines | Unsafe or inadequate wheelchair assistance and mishandled wheelchairs, 2019 to 2023 | $50 million |
| 3 Jan 2025 | JetBlue | Four chronically delayed flights; DOT's first fine for chronic delays | $2 million |
| 15 Jan 2025 | Frontier Airlines | Three chronically delayed flights, August 2022 to April 2023 | $650,000 |
| 5 Dec 2025 | Southwest Airlines (amended) | Final Treasury payment replaced by credit for $112.4 million operations control investment | $11 million credited |
| 9 Dec 2025 | American Airlines (amended) | Remaining Treasury payments replaced by spending for passengers with disabilities | About $16.7 million converted to $16.8 million of spending |
| 17 Apr 2026 | Frontier Airlines (amended) | Final payment of the January 2025 chronic delay penalty credited for passenger compensation and app notification upgrades | $162,500 credited |
Source: DOT press releases of 14 November 2022, 18 December 2023, 15 October 2024, 23 October 2024 and 3 January 2025; DOT Order 2025-1-2 (Frontier Airlines, 15 January 2025); DOT Orders 2025-12-4 (5 December 2025), 2025-12-5 (9 December 2025) and 2026-4-11 (17 April 2026). All penalties were set in consent orders agreed with the airlines; in some, such as American's, the airline settled without admitting a violation.
The trend since late 2025 is toward credits over cash. DOT's aviation consumer news page lists no new civil penalty against an airline between December 2025 and early September 2026; the orders it does list amend earlier penalties. On 6 January 2026, DOT proposed revising OACP's investigation and enforcement policies, including its sanctions. The OIG, meanwhile, found that OACP relied on airlines' self-certified refund data when crediting penalties, without verifying it.
Outlook
Complaint cases are running at about 7,390 a month in 2026, against 5,816 a month in late 2025, and DOT now publishes 2026 complaint cases in 12 categories for every listed airline, the more detailed data it promised when ACERS launched. On 24 April 2026, DOT issued a final rule requiring covered airlines to file a one-page summary of passenger rights on delays, cancellations, baggage and boarding and to post it on their websites. Its Aviation Consumer Protection Advisory Committee was scheduled to meet on 22 and 23 September 2026 to discuss that summary and the airline customer service dashboards required by the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act. For the scale of the delays behind many of these complaints, see our flight delay passenger impact statistics.
References and Sources
- Air Travel Consumer Report, September 2026 (July 2026 data), DOT Office of Aviation Consumer Protection, revised 22 September 2026
- Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2026 (June and January to June 2026 data), DOT, 12 August 2026
- Air Travel Consumer Report, July 2026 (May 2026 data), DOT, 30 June 2026
- Air Travel Consumer Report, June 2026 (April 2026 data), DOT, 12 June 2026
- Air Travel Consumer Report, May 2026 (March and January to March 2026 data), DOT, 28 May 2026
- Air Travel Consumer Report, April 2026 (February 2026 data), DOT, revised 28 May 2026
- Air Travel Consumer Report, March 2026 (January 2026 data), DOT, revised 28 May 2026
- Air Travel Complaints, Compliments, and Comments Received by DOT, August to December 2025, DOT, 17 April 2026
- Consumer Submission Data, January to July 2025 (monthly files), DOT, published 2026
- 2024 Annual Consumer Submission Data, DOT, April 2025
- Air Travel Consumer Report: June-December 2023, Full Year 2023 Airline Consumer Submissions Data, DOT press release, 5 July 2024
- Air Travel Consumer Report: December 2022, Full Year 2022 Airline Complaint Data, DOT press release, 12 April 2023
- Air Travel Consumer Report, February 2022 (December and full-year 2021 data), DOT, February 2022
- Air Travel Consumer Report, February 2021 (December and full-year 2020 data), DOT, February 2021
- Air Travel Consumer Report, December 2025 (October 2025 data), DOT, January 2026
- DOT Changed Its Processes To Address Rising Consumer Complaints but Can Enhance Its Procedures To Hold Airlines Accountable, DOT Office of Inspector General, Report AV2025045, 17 September 2025
- More than $600 Million in Refunds Returned to Airline Passengers, DOT press release, 14 November 2022
- DOT Penalizes Southwest Airlines $140 Million for 2022 Holiday Meltdown, DOT press release, 18 December 2023
- DOT Penalizes Lufthansa $4 Million for Violating Passengers' Civil Rights, DOT press release, 15 October 2024
- DOT Issues Landmark $50 Million Penalty Against American Airlines for Its Treatment of Passengers with Disabilities, DOT press release, 23 October 2024
- DOT Penalizes JetBlue for Chronic Flight Delays, DOT press release, 3 January 2025
- Order 2025-1-2, Frontier Airlines, Inc., DOT, 15 January 2025
- Order 2025-12-4, Southwest Airlines Co., DOT, 5 December 2025
- Order 2025-12-5, American Airlines, Inc., DOT, 9 December 2025
- Order 2026-4-11, Frontier Airlines, Inc., DOT, 17 April 2026
- DOT Provides Update on New Consumer Complaint Form, Eckert Seamans, 20 March 2026
- Notice Regarding Investigatory and Enforcement Policies and Procedures of the Office of Aviation Consumer Protection, Federal Register, 6 January 2026
- What's New: Aviation Consumer Protection, DOT, entries from December 2025 to September 2026 (accessed September 2026)
- DOT Consumer Advisory: Status of Spirit Airlines Operations, DOT, 1 May 2026
- Spirit Airlines ceases operations, NPR, 2 May 2026
- International air travel liability limits set to increase, ICAO, 2024
Methodology Note
All complaint figures come from DOT, which counts written complaints to its Office of Aviation Consumer Protection, not complaints made to airlines. Yearly totals use the newest DOT figure for each year: 15,342 for 2019 (ATCR, February 2021), 102,560, 49,991 and 77,656 for 2020 to 2022 (DOT, April 2023), 96,853 submissions for 2023 and 97,906 for 2024. Earlier editions show slightly different values (102,550 for 2020 and 49,958 for 2021), and the OIG cites 15,332 for 2019; category shares for 2021 use the 49,958 base published with that year's categories. DOT also reports 86,240 submissions for 2022, a wider measure than the 77,656 complaints. The 2025 figure combines 49,502 legacy submissions (January to July, summed from seven monthly files) with 29,080 ACERS complaint cases (August to December), and the January to July 2026 total adds the published January to June figure (43,184) to July (8,544). April 2026 (7,278) comes from the June 2026 ATCR. Because DOT revises some monthly counts, the seven monthly figures sum to 51,739, slightly above the 51,728 year-to-date total used in the text. Complaints per 100,000 passengers are AirAdvisor calculations: January to June 2026 complaint cases for each of the 9 reporting marketing carriers divided by the enplaned passengers DOT reports for them in the same edition's denied boarding table, which counts domestic and outbound international passengers but not inbound international ones; DOT's own pre-2023 rankings used a different base, so the rates are not comparable with them. Rankings refer only to the dataset, period and metric named. Complaints reflect passengers' perceptions, are attributed to the airline brand on the ticket, and in ACERS are categorised by the passengers themselves.
Author:
Amy LancelotteJob/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.
Flight Compensation Calculator:
Check if you are entitled to flight delay compensation in just 3 minutes.
