Yahoo Finance These are the 10 best airlines to fly during the coronavirus pandemic
The number of Americans flying has cratered in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, but some airlines are going above and beyond in trying to make the experience less stressful as possible.
In teasing out which airlines might be best to fly with in 2020, travel site The Points Guy is back with their airline ranking this year with slight modifications in methodology to include booking flexibility, health policies and plane cleanliness.
“This year we just felt we needed to throw everything out the window and look at what airlines are doing to build our loyalty whether we’re flying today or flying again in six months or a year,” The Points Guy Executive Editorial Director Scott Mayerowitz told Yahoo Finance’s YFi PM. “The key is how well do you clean the planes, how do you handle all those refunds when we’re canceling flights, and how flexible are your travel policies moving forward.”
Weighing all metrics, The Points Guy ranked Delta first with Alaska Airlines and JetBlue following closely behind. Budget carrier Spirit Airlines came in last.
On the ticketing flexibility front, Southwest ranked highest, which Mayerowitz said was to be expected given the airline’s history of flexibility. “Southwest has always been the best, pandemic or not, basically they are letting you cancel change do whatever you want with tickets,” he said.
On the other end of the spectrum, Frontier received low marks for its policy that set a deadline of 90 days to reschedule any bookings, according to Mayerowitz.
When it comes to how airlines are addressing the health issues at hand, Delta and JetBlue were standouts, while American and United got dinged for packing in passengers.
“American and United were both blocking seats at one point, but still selling full planes,” Mayerowitz explained.
You can check out The Points Guy’s full ranking here.
Zack Guzman is the host of YFi PM as well as a senior writer and on-air reporter covering entrepreneurship, cannabis, startups, and breaking news at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @zGuz.
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