The best (and worst) airlines for wheelchair accessibility in 2025 have been named in a ranking by InsureMyTrip. The analysis comes as several US carriers are challenging new US protections for passengers rules in court.
Using US Department of Transportation (DOT) data, the study looked at how many wheelchairs and scooters were mishandled in 2024, and factored in negative and positive opinions based on reviews mentioning ‘wheelchair’ and social media sentiment.
The airlines included in the study were drawn from DOT’s Air Travel Consumer Report and the data was standardized to create a score between 0-10 reflecting their treatment of wheelchair users.
The lowest scoring airlines
Frontier Airlines scored just 2.19, with 535 mishandled wheelchairs or scooters. While that is only 1.76% of 30,448 boarded devices, Frontier had 83% negative sentiment, while 51% of reviews containing ‘wheelchair’ received a 1-star rating.
Second-worst is American Airlines Network, with an overall score of 3.25, resulting from 2,635 mishandled wheelchairs and scooters out of 161,287 boarded mobility devices, a negative sentiment score of 59% and 25% of their reviews containing ‘wheelchair’ rated at 1-star.
Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air come in third and fourth worst respectively. Spirit Airlines mishandled 576 wheelchairs and scooters, with the largest percentage of mishandled mobility devices at 2.07%. Allegiant Air mishandled 207 out of the 27,575 wheelchairs and scooters it transported in 2024. Despite having a lower mishandling rate, Allegiant received a higher proportion of 1-star reviews mentioning wheelchairs, at 32%, compared to 28% for Spirit Airlines.
In fifth worst position is United Airlines Network, which mishandled 1,511 wheelchairs and scooters out of 156,528.
The best five airlines
JetBlue places first as the best airline overall for wheelchair users with a positive sentiment of 97% – the highest in the study. In addition, 51% of travel reviews including ‘wheelchair’ were 5-star reviews. In 2024, the airline mishandled 464 wheelchairs and scooters, which equates to 1.59% of all boarded mobility devices.
Delta Air Lines Network is second with the lowest percentage of mishandled mobility devices in 2024. Just 0.63% (464) of their 155,000 boarded wheelchairs and scooters were mishandled. From 901 reviews, they had 436 reviews containing ‘wheelchair’ that received 5-stars.
In third position, Alaska Airlines Network which mishandled 547 wheelchairs and scooters in 2024, out of 35,430. Overall, they had a positive sentiment rating of 58%, while 58% of reviews mentioning ‘wheelchair’ are 5-star ratings.
Hawaiian and Southwest Airlines are in fourth and fifth position respectively, with Hawaiian Airlines having 66% positive sentiment online, while Southwest has a 50-50 split for both positive and negative. Hawaiian Airlines also had 37% of their reviews mentioning ‘wheelchair’ at 5-star, while Southwest Airlines had 61%. Hawaiian Airlines did have a lower number of boarded wheelchairs and scooters. Of the14,997 mobility devices boarded only 156 were reported as mishandled, while Southwest had the largest number of boarded mobility devices in the study. In 2024, there were 260,565 mobility devices boarded and 3,744 were reported as mishandled.
