A new year means new resolutions, new opportunities and, importantly for travelers, new flights. Hawaii trips are set to get a bit easier at Southwest Airlines. Greenland will get what may be its first U.S. nonstop on United Airlines. And a newly beefed-up Alaska Airlines is launching flights to Tokyo and Seoul.

Alaska Airlines is the only United States-based carrier that was in AirlineRatings' top 10—although Hawaiian, American, Delta and United were in the top 25.

Air New Zealand, which flies one of the longest regularly scheduled routes on the entire planet, took the top award, handed out by AirlineRatings.com. The Kiwi carrier serves Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, from New York’s JFK Airport — a distance of 8,828 miles. The trip takes 16 hours and 15 minutes.

Allegiant Air had the lowest mishandled baggage rate overall but saw a 46.2% spike year over year, data show. In contrast, JetBlue Airways saw the biggest improvement in baggage handling, falling 34.8% from 0.56 mishandled bags per 100 bags enplaned in 2023 to 0.36 in 2024, according to Upgraded Points.

United Airlines stock was taking off again early Wednesday as the carrier signaled accelerating demand trends in 2025 and impressed the market with its guidance.The shares have soared 187% over the past 12 months as of Tuesday’s close—the third best-performer in the S&P 500 over that period behind only nuclear energy company Vistra and artificial-intelligence software company Palantir Technologies.

Fort Lauderdale is no stranger to long routes. In fact, the flight from LAX is one of the top seven longest flights out of the airport. Other destinations include Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.

Alaska Airlines is going big in Oregon this summer with three new routes — and additional flights on existing routes — from the Beaver State. Beginning May

Air New Zealand was once again named the safest full-service airline in the world for 2025, holding on to the title for a second straight year.

American Airlines on Thursday forecast a jump in revenue of as much as 5% in the first quarter over the same three months of 2024, while capacity will be flat or even down as much as 2%. "We do expect airfare to come up,

On the other end of the spectrum, the Midwest has done a decent job of taking care of travelers' items, with major airports in Kansas City, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Denver ranked among the top six for the least complaints per 100,000 passengers.

American said it was anticipating higher costs driven by lower capacity and expensive labor contracts to dampen its first-quarter outlook.

There’s been enough drama in the past year to knock U.S. airlines off their game. An Alaska Airlines blowout grounded dozens of planes. There was a failed JetBlue-Spirt merger and Spirit’s bankruptcy.