Travel and Leisure Reveals the Most Likely Airline to Bump You

Travel and Leisure has revealed the airline most likely to bump you off your flight and derail your travel plans as travelers and passengers get ready to make their holiday arrangements.

According to the article from the magazine, the budget friendly Frontier Airlines is most likely to bump passengers, and nobody else is even a particularly close second. Bumping an average of 3.21 passengers per every 10,000 according to their study, Frontier does this at a greater than 400 percent clip more than any other airline in the United States.

American Airlines, which came in at No. 2, bumps just 0.60 passengers per 10,000, while Spirit Airlines at No. 3 bumps only 0.43 per 10,000.

“Few travel experiences are more frustrating than being bumped from a flight after purchasing a ticket. Yet it happens frequently since airlines routinely sell more tickets than available seats in anticipation of no-shows,” the editor-in-chief at Upgraded Points, Keri Stooksbury, said via the article from Travel and Leisure. “We studied this industry practice to give travelers a heads-up on which carriers are most likely to have this issue.”

The study was based off of involuntary bumping only, and while Delta Airlines led with a zero bumps that passengers did not have a say in along with Allegiant Air, the air travel giant did lead in the category of voluntary bumps with 7.49 passengers per 10,000. Voluntary bumps occur when an airline offers some sort of cash or travel reward for any passengers willing to change their plans after a flight is overbooked.

Involuntary bumping occurs when passengers are not given any sort of choice in the matter and whether they wanted to or not, their travel plans are completely derailed without the offer of any sort of reward. An involuntary bumping could completely throw off a vacation or work trip that may have been carefully and meticulously planned.

Long story short, if you have a flight that you absolutely cannot miss for whatever reason such as seeing family for the holidays or an important work meeting, it may be wise to consider alternative airlines than the ones near the top of the involuntary bumping list.