United ranks as the worst U.S. airline for mishandled luggage. I’ve checked bags with them for nearly a decade without an issue
New DOT baggage data tells a very different story from my own years of flying United with an overpacked suitcase.
I am a chronic overpacker. I check a bag every time I fly, and I’ve been flying United regularly for close to a decade.
They have never lost my luggage. Not once.
So I was pretty surprised to see United at the top of a new ranking of U.S. airlines with the highest rates of mishandled baggage.
Squaremouth analyzed 2025 baggage data from the U.S. Department of Transportation and found that United had the highest rate among the major U.S. carriers included in the study.
Apparently my personal airline luck has very little interest in statistics.
What does “mishandled” luggage actually mean?
This isn’t limited to bags that disappear forever. The Department of Transportation counts luggage as mishandled if it is lost, delayed, damaged or pilfered while in an airline’s custody.
Squaremouth compared those incidents with the total number of bags each airline handled in 2025.
Here are the five airlines with the highest rates.
5. Delta Air Lines
Delta recorded 0.43 mishandled bags per 100 checked, with 436,502 incidents among more than 102 million bags.
That makes my own Delta experience look especially unlucky. I have flown the airline far less often than United, yet it has given me far more headaches. And that’s especially funny considering Delta was recently named the best U.S. airline overall.
4. Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines had a mishandled baggage rate of 0.52 per 100 bags.
The airline handled just over 28 million bags in 2025, with 145,786 reported as mishandled.
3. Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines came in at 0.54 mishandled bags per 100.
Its longer-term numbers are also worth noting. Squaremouth found that Hawaiian’s mishandled baggage rate increased 135% between 2021 and 2025.
2. American Airlines
American had the second-highest rate at 0.66 mishandled bags per 100.
It also handled more checked bags than any airline in the study, with more than 110 million bags enplaned during 2025.
1. United Airlines
United had the highest mishandled baggage rate of the group at 0.72 per 100 bags.
The airline handled about 77.2 million checked bags, and 552,263 were reported as mishandled.
This is obviously the one that doesn’t line up with my own experience. I have handed United a checked suitcase flight after flight for years without an issue.
Southwest is much better at this than I expected
One of the more interesting comparisons in the study is Southwest.
Southwest handled more than 109 million checked bags in 2025, about 32 million more than United, yet its mishandled baggage rate was only 0.38 per 100 bags.
That put Southwest among the best-performing airlines despite handling one of the largest volumes of checked luggage in the country.
Allegiant had the lowest mishandling rate overall at just 0.09 bags per 100, followed by JetBlue at 0.31.
So sheer baggage volume doesn’t explain why some airlines perform better than others.
Would this change which airline I book?
Probably not on its own.
I pay attention to baggage performance because I almost never travel carry-on only, but my own history with an airline matters too. And so far, United has earned my trust with checked luggage.
The broader numbers still surprised me, though. If you had asked me to rank United and Delta based only on the bags I’ve checked over the years, I would have put them in exactly the opposite order.
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It happens every country except like japan. Last time i bought new luggage for travel it was severly damaged after my return
Thank you for sharing