Another year of travel is in the books. We've already recapped the biggest stories of the year, what readers (apparently) liked most, 366 days of flight deals – including the top 10, the best of the best. But some things deserve special recognition … for better or worse.
Introducing our first annual “First Class Award” and “Lavatory Award.” Starting on this final day of 2024, we're setting aside some digital ink to call out the absolute best and worst from the past year in travel.
Look, I get it: Air travel isn't exactly fun – though, as a generally demented traveler and self-professed “sicko,” I'd politely disagree with you there. But really, how can we celebrate anything that involves sitting in a cramped seat inside a metal tube, drinking crappy coffee, and – God forbid – people who take their shoes off or clap when the plane lands?
It's important for us to take the wins where we can, travelers. Yes, I promise you, there were, in fact, wins this year.
At the same token, there needs to be some kind of accountability for the bad. The airlines, hotel chains, travel sites, banks, and credit card companies that connect our world make billions of dollars while doing so. We shouldn't let their negative changes and (not-so-subtle hint incoming) outright collapses – the stuff that might otherwise have been forgotten, lost due to recency bias in the never-ending news cycle – fade.
So who wins the very-much coveted inaugural First Class Award? Who's taking home the first-ever Lavatory Award for letting us all down this year?
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The First Class Award: The American Traveler
The First Class Award: The American TravelerIn 2020 and much of 2021, we were all still stuck at home. In 2022, domestic airfare prices went through the roof. As travelers finally looked overseas in 2023, transatlantic airfare followed suit. And through it all, airlines struggled with keeping planes moving on time.
It wasn't a perfect year, but I'd argue everyday travelers chalked up far more wins than losses in 2024. It'd be impossible to pick just one, so we pulled a Time Magazine 2006 and declared you – the American traveler – the overall winner of the year.
Here's why:
- Intense competition and overcapacity from low-cost carriers brought domestic airfare to record lows this past year
- Southwest's surprising decision to begin listing its fares on Google Flights has turned it into a one-stop shop for finding cheaper fares, making it easier than ever to compare prices in one place
- While flight prices may not have dropped on every route, flight deals over to Europe were much easier to find this past year compared to 2023's surge in prices
- … and that includes some incredibly rare award space to fly across the Atlantic in a lie-flat business class seat over summer 2024 – typically an impossible feat
- Whether you want to stick close to home or fly abroad, we've got more fun nonstop flight options than ever before as airlines continue expanding – and not just from New York City to Paris, but increasingly from smaller U.S. airports to further-flung destinations
- We've still got a ways to go, but a handful of regulatory changes this year could be a big win for American consumers: We're now guaranteed an automatic refund when flights get canceled or schedules change considerably; airlines and travel sites will soon be forced to disclose extra fees for bags or cancellation penalties sooner; and hotels can no longer surprise guests with $50-plus “resort fees” or “destination fees” at checkout.
- It'll be close, but 2024 is on track to go down as one of the smoothest years in air travel, as measured by percentage of flights canceled.
In 2024, you could have booked a flight from the states to Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or Dublin (DUB) for under $400 roundtrip. Rather than making a connection, you could have flown nonstop from the U.S. to Naples (NAP) on Italy's southwestern coast, Malaga (AGP) in southern Spain, or Faro (FAO) on the Portuguese Algarve. And while it may not have been a slam dunk, using points to book a trip across the Atlantic in a lie-flat seat over summer was a reality.
And if any of those flights got canceled or moved by six-plus hours, you can now get your money back without fighting an airline that insists you should take a voucher instead.
Now, I admit 2024 wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Travel never is.
In particular, it was a rough year for my fellow points and miles aficionados who took hit after hit after hit as nearly a dozen airlines raised award rates left and right, charging drastically more miles overnight and eliminating reliable sweet spots – often without a word of warning. And as Amex steadily expanded its “extreme couponing” approach to the *amex gold* and even Delta's co-branded credit cards, Amex cardholders have more annoying “benefits” to keep tabs on than ever before … and much more to pay in annual fees, too.
Still, we'll gladly take the bad with the good. I'm no glass-half-full optimist, but I'd say the good easily outweighed the bad for travelers in 2024.
That's why we're awarding you – the American traveler – with this year's inaugural First Class Award. Congratulations on your upgrade … just don't get used to it.
Runner-up: Chase for its rapid buildout of Chase Sapphire Lounges.
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The Lavatory Award: Delta's Messy Meltdown
The Lavatory Award: Delta's Messy MeltdownThe carrier that fancies itself America's premium airline and an “on-time machine” suffered its worst meltdown in history this year, disrupting millions of Americans' summer travel plans.
Could this award go to anyone or anything other than Delta?
What started with a worldwide software outage that affected airlines across the globe spiraled into a catastrophic meltdown for Delta … and only Delta. Other airlines were back to normal within in days (if not hours), and yet the Atlanta-based airline wound up canceling more than 5,500 flights over a five-day span – more than its cancellations from 2018 and 2019 … combined, according to federal records.
That's bad enough. Delta's public response made it much worse.
From the start, Delta tried the pin the blame on CrowdStrike and CrowdStrike alone, angling immediately for a court battle to recoup the costs of its operational collapse rather than leveling with their paying customers about what went wrong
In emails to travelers and public communications during the worst of it, mentions of “the CrowdStrike-caused outage” came first, apologies second. Automated replies during 20-hour wait times referenced “a vendor technology issue that has impacted several airlines and businesses around the world” – nevermind the fact that all of Delta's competitors were back to flying as normal by then.
Southwest's CEO eventually got on camera for a full explanation and apology amid the airline's even bigger Christmas 2022 collapse. Delta CEO Ed Bastian never did: Instead, he flew to Paris for the kickoff of the Summer Olympics … on a day that his airline canceled more than 500 flights.
Despite the “CrowdStrike, CrowdStrike, CrowdStrike” bluster, Delta hinted (and outright admitted in internal messages to employees) that one of its critical crew scheduling platforms broke down in the hours after the initial outage. Buckling under the weight of mass cancellations, several efforts to restart that critical software sputtered, triggering more cancellations that would, in turn, make matters worse.
Through it all, Delta has repeatedly insisted it went above and beyond to make things right with customers, spending $100 million to cover rental cars, hotels, meals, and flights on other airlines. Add in the financial toll of doling out refunds and lost ticket revenue, and the meltdown cost Delta more than $500 million.
But the airline was slow to confirm it would cover the cost of tickets on other carriers. A haphazard claims submission process left many travelers waiting for weeks – and their luggage, too. And some diehard Delta flyers felt like the airline's offer of $100 vouchers or 12,500 SkyMiles was not an adequate apology but a slap in the face for days of disruptions.
It was the worst meltdown in Delta's history – a black eye for an airline that prides itself on reliability and a textbook case of how not to respond. And yet unlike Southwest a year and a half before, Delta executives were never hauled before Congress to explain their blunders. Call me cynical, but some lucky timing might have played a role in Delta (pardon the pun) flying under the radar: The same weekend the meltdown began, President Joe Biden announced he'd exit the 2024 race.
Five months later, little has changed.
Even with all those cancellations, Delta remains one of the nation's most reliable carriers in 2024 – second only to Hawaiian Airlines, according to the latest federal Air Travel Consumer Report. The airline is still in court with CrowdStrike. An investigation into Delta's response to the meltdown is yielded no federal penalties and little news. That investigation is ongoing, a Department of Transportation spokesperson confirmed this week.
All the while, Delta continues playing the blame game.
“I’m sick and tired of these big tech companies that run our life and then don’t take accountability for it,” Bastian said to applause during a Minneapolis airport event this fall. “We’re going to fight hard to get that money back.”
For all of that and more, Delta and its handling of its July meltdown get the inaugural Lavatory Award.
Runners-up: Low-cost carriers like Spirit and Frontier struggling for survival (and what that means for the future of cheap airfare); American Express and its seemingly bottomless appetite for convoluted “money-saving” credits.