[amyjess]

Ditto. And I'm really sad because after nearly two decades of not flying, I flew again last year (two round trips!) on Southwest, and I loved it and was looking forward to flying Southwest again. And now because of the 737 MAX, I'm going to have to avoid them.

What low-cost carriers in the US fly Airbus exclusively? There's Spirit, which is notoriously horrible, and I saw someone mention JetBlue elsewhere in this thread. Any others?

[alexhutcheson]

There is Allegiant, which has an all-Airbus fleet, but you're unlikely to fly them unless you're taking a vacation to Vegas or Florida.

Spirit also gets an unnecessarily bad rap. Yes, their seats are tight, but they fly very few true long-haul flights, so it's not that big of a deal, and the Big Front Seat is probably the best value "premium economy" experience in the US. Prices for food and drinks in flight are more reasonable than they would be in the airport. In my experience, the only really unpleasant things about flying Spirit are:

1. Long lines to check bags (solution: don't check a bag, just pay the $5 extra to carry it on)

2. Other passengers that disregard plane etiquette (listening to music without headphones, etc.) or just complain a lot.

[txcwpalpha]

Allegiant has one of the notoriously worst safety records of any US airline. I definitely wouldn't recommend them if your goal is to pick a safer flying experience.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/allegiant-air-the-budget-airlin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Safety_concerns

[teslabox]

Allegiant started out with old DC-9's/MD-80's, and a few 757's. They were all replaced with Airbus A320's by November 2018. Most of Allegiant's previous safety problems stemmed from using old jets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Fleet

I think the company's startup plan was to use cheap/old fuel-guzzling aircraft to get the business off the ground: it's cheaper to pay for fuel than interest payments on new jets. Now that they've built a stable-enough business they've transitioned to newer planes. Wikipedia says the company's first brand-new jet was purchased in 2017, which was 20 years after the company was founded.

[txcwpalpha]

Delta is also known for using old jets (including MD-80s, a lot of 757s, and until 2014 the DC-9. 25% of Delta's current fleet is these old planes) and is famous in the aviation world for having a stellar maintenance program and few safety issues with them. Up until ~2014, American also had several hundred MD-80s (and still has many 757s) in its fleet, and yet it still didn't have nearly the rate of safety issues that Allegiant has.

Many of the issues Allegiant was cited for were also not only due to the plane being old, but also because Allegiant's maintenance crews (which apparently are very understaffed and underequipped) totally missed the issue and erroneously cleared the plane to fly.

Allegiant's issues may have been partly due to old planes, but as evidenced by Delta/American, if Allegiant had a decent maintenance operation the old planes would not have been a problem. The fact that they still had issues does not speak well of their overall safety program, which is more than just the types of planes they fly, and also affects their current fleet.