This Budget-Friendly Airline Is Widely Regarded As The Safest Choice For Travel In America

If you've been avoiding flights on Spirit Airlines, you're not alone. In 2024, the Axios Harris Poll surveyed thousands of American consumers on the reputation of popular brands, and ranked Spirit Airlines in the bottom three, sandwiched between controversial social media companies Meta and X. But you may want to break away from the pack, stock up on some genius hacks to make flying more comfortable, and give Spirit another chance. While you may not be getting the most luxurious flight experience, Spirit has been ranked the safest US airline two years in a row by reports from Wallethub that analyzed safety data going back to 2018.

Spirit Airlines also was ranked among the top three airlines overall by Wallethub in categories like reliability, comfort, price, and safety (its top category, along with affordability) beating out behemoths like Delta, United, JetBlue, and American Airlines. Choosing Spirit is one of the most effective ways to save money while booking flights. This budget-friendly airline is known for having some of the lowest last-minute flight prices and has a reputation for making routes more affordable for passengers by driving down cost, but its crowning achievement may be its safety ratings. As frustrating as passengers find Spirit's add-on fees for basics like baggage and snacks, no-frills flights are equipped to get you to your destination safely, which is the most important thing.

Statistically, air travel is extremely safe — far safer than driving a car — and it has been getting safer every year. That doesn't mean that some airlines aren't safer than others, however. To find the safest airline, Wallethub analyzed a few different metrics. It received full points for having an incredible zero injuries on board that were fatal or even required medical care between 2018 and 2023. While there were some accidents which lowered its overall score, Spirit still had less incidents proportionally than some of its competitors.

Another factor which certainly helped Spirit Airlines take the top spot is that their fleet of planes is relatively new — less than 10 years old. According to Spirit, they have one of the newest fleets in the United States, and regularly bring in the Airbuses for their flights. While older planes are not necessarily dangerous to fly on, the study which ranked Spirit as No. 1 considered planes older than a decade to be riskier.