What are the AirHelp 2024 airline rankings and why did IndiGo rank badly on their list? MC Explains

IndiGo has ranked as one of the worst airlines in the world according to a survey by AirHelp.

India’s largest airline, IndiGo, has been ranked among the world’s worst airlines in the 2024 AirHelp Score report, securing 103rd place out of 109 with a score of 4.80. The low ranking is attributed to poor customer satisfaction and the mishandling of flight disruption claims, customer claims management company AirHelp said as part of their report released on December 4.

"IndiGo has rapidly expanded its fleet to over 360 aircraft, now operating more than 2,000 daily flights across 77 domestic and 33 international destinations. While customers still appreciate the quality of service, and flights tend to be fairly punctual, its inclusion among the worst 10 airlines in the world is unsurprising given the measly 0.3/10 score for claim handling," AirHelp had said in its post about the 10 worst airlines in the world.

IndiGo has questioned the credibility of AirHelp's survey and pointed out that it has consistently maintained a strong performance, leading in punctuality and recording the lowest customer complaint ratio among airlines of its size and operational scale based on data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)

In its statement, IndiGo pointed out that the survey did not disclose the sample size from India or consider the methodology and compensation guidelines followed by the global aviation industry, "casting a doubt on its credibility".

So how credible are the claims made by AirHelp? To answer that question we will have to look at what AirHelp is and what it does.

AirHelp is a claims management company that helps passengers enforce their rights and boasts the highest number of reviews worldwide. The company’s works on a no-win, no-fee model that that passengers are only charged if AirHelp is successful in securing their compensation.

The company employs technology alongside a dedicated team of legal professionals to verify the legitimacy of each claim, manage all necessary documentation, and conduct negotiations directly with the airlines, according to the company's website. In addition to managing claims, AirHelp helps educate the public about passenger rights and advocating improvements in the travel industry.

How does AirHelp rank airlines?

Bloomberg quoted AirHelp CEO Tomasz Pawliszyn, as saying  that the rankings aim to "encourage airlines to continuously listen to passenger feedback," providing a snapshot of airline performance.

Brussels Airlines topped the list with a score of (8.12), followed by Qatar Airways (8.11) and United Airlines (8.04). Air India, the only other Indian airline ranked, placed 61st with a score of 6.15.

The company said that it came out with its 2024 annual global ranking of the world's best-known airlines by comparing 109 airlines during the period 1st January - 31st October 2024.

"We combine a lot of information — from factual data on airlines’ on-time performance, to customers’ opinions based on their own flying experience. And we’re in a unique position to factor in how airlines behave when flights don't go to plan," AirHelp said on its website.

The company ranks airlines on three categories - claim processing, on-time performance and customer opinion - with each category contributing to 33 percent weightage to the final score.

AirHelp said that it maintains a database of flight data for every flight between 1st January and 31st October 2024, which it used to calculate how many of any given airline’s flights were on time. It categorises any flight that arrived within 15 minutes of its published arrival time as an on-time flight.

Similarly, the company said that it ran hundreds of surveys where air travellers from more than 54 countries were asked for their opinions — and collected almost 20,000 rankings of airlines. Passengers were asked to rate the airlines they had most recently flown with on five factors - cabin crew, aircraft comfort, aircraft cleanliness, food offering and entertainment on-board.

Lastly, AirHelp said that it based its claim processing score on multiple factors including-how likely an airline is to pay out compensation for a valid claim, whether claims are resolved quickly, or require additional effort, the total volume of claims an airline is processing, and accounting for past and current claim processing behaviours.

How reliable are AirHelp's rankings?

This isn’t the first time the ranking of airlines has faced some backlash and questions over how it ranks carriers. Back in 2019, Skytrax downgraded Turkish Airlines — which often is ranked among the top airlines in the world — to three-star status out of a possible five, just a year after the airline announced it would pull out of the organisation altogether.

Rankings of airlines by organisations are often deemed 'murky' by airlines that rank low on their list and credible by airlines that rank high on the list.

In most cases rankings generally fall into four groups: experience reports by ordinary travellers, experience reports from frequent travellers, evaluations from professional travel writers, and objective measures.

While AirHelp's methodology and ranking system does help its case when presenting its ranking, no source has a lock on accuracy, reliability, or utility. However, as consumers you can look at  all the sources, and come to your own rating conclusions.