Airline companies’ customer service: Who is failing consumers?

• Satisfaction in airlines’ customer service has improved in the last six months, reaching +59. Despite this, four in ten customers still experience problems when contacting an airline with an issue or query (39%).
• Customers are least satisfied with the time it takes to sort their issue and the means of contacting their airline.
• There is a huge disparity between airlines’ customer service. While Jet2 and Emirates perform very well, Wizz Air is by far the worst large airline for customer service, followed by British Airways and Ryanair.
• Wizz Air and Ryanair customers were least satisfied with the variety of contact options they provided, while British Airways customers were least satisfied with how long it took to get in touch with a person that can help them.

Effective customer service is crucial for both businesses and consumers. Consumers must be able to efficiently and effectively contact a business with any issue they may be experiencing without facing any unnecessary barriers or experiencing any harm as a result. Businesses should also care about delivering good customer service as it can foster trust in the brand and make customers more likely to use their services in the future. 

Over the last couple of years Which? has been carrying out research looking in-depth at customer service and calling out the worst companies to urgently improve and make it easier for customers to get timely and effective solutions. Our research in May 2024 found that airlines were the joint third worst sector for overall customer service and that Ryanair and Wizz Air were the poorest-performing airlines. Six months on, we repeated this research to see if airlines had improved their customer service or not. 

Airlines’ customer service has improved in the last six months but problems persist

In our most recent research into customer service, an online survey of 5,246 UK adults, we found that 12% of adults have contacted an airline in the last 12 months with an issue or query (November 2023 to November 2024). Three in four of these UK adults were satisfied with their overall customer service experience (73%), while 14% were dissatisfied. This gives the airline sector a net satisfaction score of +59, a seven point improvement compared to six months prior (+52) and moves them up two ranks when compared to eight other sectors. 

The Civil Aviation Authority’s data also shows that, over a similar timeframe, the number of passenger complaints has also fallen. These improvements are encouraging as they indicate that airlines are serving their customers better. 

Consumer satisfaction with overall customer service by sector

Despite this improvement in overall satisfaction with their customer service, four in ten adults making contact with an airline reported experiencing at least one problem with the customer service (39%). This is very similar to our May 2024 survey (41%) and keeps airlines as the third worst sector for problems experienced. The most common problems experienced by consumers making contact were related to the time involved and quality of response. One in six reported waiting a long time on the phone before speaking to an advisor (17%) and 13% had to wait a long time before receiving a response to their email. More concerningly, one in 10 reported speaking to unhelpful or dismissive advisors (9%). 

Consumers experiencing at least one problem with customer service by sector

Customers are dissatisfied with the time it takes to sort their issue and the means of contacting their airline

Which?'s previous research and campaigning on customer service over the last year has highlighted that one of consumers’ biggest issues with customer service is often being unable to get a timely response. This continues to be the case for the airline sector, as shown by the most common problems consumers experience and the fact that net satisfaction is lowest for how long it takes to get in touch with a person that can help. The sector score of +36 for this reflects 60% of those making contact being satisfied and one in four (23%) dissatisfied. This is a four point decrease in net satisfaction from six months prior. 

Net satisfaction for the airline sector is also low for how easy it is to find contact information (+45) and the variety of contact options provided (+40). This indicates that some of consumers' biggest bug bears with the airline industry happens at the start of the customer service journey. Whether it is because their flight has been cancelled and they are stuck at the airport or they need a refund for costs they incurred, difficulties and delays in the initial stages of contacting their airline can be hugely frustrating and damaging to consumers. Over half (54%) of airline customers experiencing problems in their customer service reported feeling frustrated, with 30% feeling stressed and 29% helpless as a result of their negative experience. 

Consumer satisfaction with aspects of airlines’ customer service

Wizz Air are the worst large airline for customer service, followed by British Airways and Ryanair

Unlike other sectors, the airline sector has a huge disparity in how well different airlines perform in their customer service. Some airlines perform extremely well, for example the vast majority of consumers making contact with Jet2 were satisfied with their overall customer service (91%), with only 4% being dissatisfied (giving a net satisfaction score of +87). Conversely, Wizz Air performs terribly, with only 46% of their customers making contact being satisfied and 32% being dissatisfied. That is a huge eight times as many customers making contact being dissatisfied and a 72 point difference in net satisfaction score compared to Jet2. 

Whilst Ryanair (+42) and British Airways (+40) outperform Wizz Air (+15) for customer service satisfaction, they both fall short of the sector average (+52) and lag behind other major airlines. We will now look closer at each of these three airlines in turn. 

Consumer satisfaction with overall customer service by airline

In our research, Wizz Air is the worst airline across all nine of our customer service satisfaction metrics, as well as problems customers said they had with the customer service. Wizz Air customers are least satisfied with the variety of contact options they provide, scoring them  -7 for this (37% satisfied, 45% dissatisfied). Six in 10 of customers contacting Wizz Air’s customer service reported experiencing at least one problem (59%) - this is 20 percentage points more than the sector average of 39%. A significant proportion of customers said they couldn’t even reach their customer services, despite continuous attempts (23%). Additionally, one in six of them making contact said they weren’t given good advice or support from the Wizz Air advisor (17%). 

Through our story-capture tool we recently heard from one Wizz Air customer who had a bad experience travelling with their son with down syndrome… 

“I don’t think any company beats heartlessness more than Wizz Air! … [After the incident] it was very complicated to contact them as they had limited options to complain about unfulfilled duties (special assistance) and unfulfilled promises (that the 2nd flight would wait). I received an irrelevant answer and then they closed the complaint saying that the complaint was resolved when I informed them that they hadn’t responded to my issue. It broke me how heartless [they were]... not even a decent apology!”

British Airways customers making contact were least satisfied with how long it took to get in touch with a person that can help them. Their score of +15 reflects half of their customers being satisfied with this (48%) and a third (33%) being dissatisfied. Whilst they have more customers being satisfied than dissatisfied, it is concerning that so many of their customers are experiencing this issue, especially when comparing to the scores of other airlines. This score of +15 is considerably worse than Ryanairs’ score of +27 for this aspect of customer service, only beaten by Wizz Air who scored -3. 

Difficulties making the initial contact can also be seen as a major issue for British Airways customers when looking at the problems they reported; a quarter reported waited a long time on the phone before speaking to an advisor (25%), 18% experienced long delays in receiving a response to their email, and 16% were passed between departments without a helpful response. In total, half of British Airways customers experienced at least one problem. Two thirds of these people said they felt frustrated as a result (65%), whilst half felt annoyed (52%) and 45% irritated. For example, a British Airways told us about their recent frustrating experience:

“Faced with a chatbot my question was not on the list of questions so I was eventually transferred to a human. The conversation started quite well, but then they disappeared. I asked on three occasions if they were still there but had no reply. I waited but decided enough was enough having become so frustrated and on the verge of being stressed. At the age of 87 it was not good.” Male, 65+

Finally, while Ryanair performs slightly better than British Airways for overall customer service satisfaction (+42 compared to +44), how long it takes to get in touch (+27 compared to +27) and the proportion of customers experiencing problems (46% compared to 50%), there are some aspects of customer service that they perform worse at. One of these is the variety of contact options provided, for which half of their customers were satisfied (51%) but 27% were dissatisfied, giving a score of +24. The most common problems Ryanair customers reported were having to wait a long time on a phone to speak to someone (16%) and speaking to unhelpful or dismissive advisors (12%).

Consumer satisfaction and problems with airlines’ customer service

Summary

There are positive signs that customer service in the airline industry has improved over the past six months, with overall customer satisfaction increasing seven points. Despite this, a huge disparity in customer service performance remains, with Wizz Air, Ryanair and British Airways lagging well behind other major airlines. These airlines must improve their customer service. While our data indicates Ryanair has improved over the last six months, their performance is still well below the sector average. British Airways, an airline that has traditionally been seen as providing a more premium service than the low-budget airlines, now performs equally as poorly as Ryanair and is trending in the wrong direction; almost two thirds (63%) of those who experienced problems believe their customer service has become worse over the last few years. And finally Wizz Air continues to perform extremely poorly for customer service, showing no signs of improvement. 

Customers of these airlines are especially dissatisfied with difficulties making contact; British Airways must improve the time it takes for their customers to get in touch with someone who can help, whilst Ryanair and Wizz Air must ensure they offer a good variety of contact options, as well as improving in all other areas. 

Methodology

Yonder, on behalf of Which?, conducted an online survey of 4,184 nationally representative adults aged 18+ between 6th and 10th November 2024. Respondents were asked if they had contacted companies in the following sectors in the last 12 months; their energy provider, their broadband provider, an airline, a booking site, a financial service, a home improvement company, a delivery company or a retailer. Across the nationally representative survey of 4,184 UK adults and our boost sample, we captured 1,119 respondents who had contacted an airline in the last year.

Customer service satisfaction metrics

We asked respondents who contacted an airline in the last year to rate how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with their experience when contacting their customer service. If respondents had contacted more than one airline, they were asked to respond about the one they contacted most recently. They rated the following nine statements against a 5-point satisfaction scale where “1” was very dissatisfied and “5” was very satisfied. 

1. How easy it was to find contact information
2. The variety of contact options provided
3. How long it took to get in touch with a person that could help
4. How seriously the customer service representative took your issue/ query
5. How well the customer service representative kept you informed about the progress of your issue /query
6. How long it took to get an answer to your issue /query
7. How well your issue/ query was dealt with
8. How well my issue/query was resolved 
9. Overall customer service

We also ask people to tell us what problems they encountered when they contacted their provider. The list of problems they selected from was developed by analysing thousands of stories of poor customer service submitted to the Which?’s case study tool, as part of our Customer Service Counts campaign. 

The two customer stories come from our customer service story-capture tool. This was launched in December 2023 to give consumers a platform to share their struggles with poor customer service. Over the past year, the tool has collected approximately 4,600 consumer stories.