TOP TEN AIRLINES

At the end of the year, everyone seems to come out with their Top Ten lists for just about everything, so we might as well do one of our own, for airlines. We don’t presume to know who is the best. Instead we will turn to several prominent organizations that conduct their own annual surveys. They are Conde Nast Magazine, Travel & Leisure Magazine, OAG, and Skytrax Research.



First, though, let’s cut to the chase, and reveal what is the world’s best airline for 2004.



According to the readers of Conde Nast Magazine, the best is Singapore Airlines for international routes and JetBlue for “domestic” (ie. U.S.). The criteria the magazine uses is pretty comprehensive, including ticketing/ground services, cabin comfort, cabin service, entertainment options, and food/beverages (in the case of international). Note, however, that food/beverage is excluded from the “domestic” U.S., thus stacking the deck in favour of the low-cost carriers. In fact, this year four out of the ten top domestic airlines were budget, no-frills airlines. For this reason, and the fact that most of our clients are based outside of the U.S., we will stick to looking at international carriers (which include U.S. airlines, of course.)



Travel & Leisure Magazine agrees—Singapore Airlines is the world’s best airline for 2004.



OAG, the publisher of the airline guide used world-wide by travel agents and airlines, stages an annual awards event for best airlines. The OAG Airline of the Year Awards actually hosts an annual gala dinner and awards ceremony to recognize and celebrate the very best in global air travel. This event, often called ‘The Oscars of the airline industry’, is now in its 23rd year. Votes for the award categories are polled from OAG’s world-wide customer base of business travelers, and therefore it has a corporate travel bias.



This year’s winner stunned the airline industry—Continental Airlines. It is the first U.S . -based carrier to win the title since the awards were established 22 years ago. Continental also won the Best Executive/Business Class category and was voted Best Airline based in North America in the OAG awards, and was short-listed in three other categories.



One other organization weighing in on the subject is Skytrax Research, a London-based aviation market research company. Their survey is perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough one, which looks at factors such as competitive performance, passenger loyalty, passenger satisfaction analysis, and brand-awareness. Skytrax calls its “Airline of the Year” selection the global barometer of airline passenger opinions, and it claims to be free of any outside or financial influences. It also claims to be the only airline survey that is truly worldwide in perspective, taking in more than 90 different passenger nationalities. Billing itself the world's "largest" passenger survey, it was conducted over a 10 month period - from June 2003 to March 2004 - the total number of eligible survey nominations being 10,821,215.



Their “Airline of the Year 2004” is (surprise!) Singapore Airlines.



Now, for our Top Ten List. This is a consolidation of the four surveys mentioned above. The top ten airlines of 2004 are:



1. Singapore

2. Cathay Pacific

3. Emirates

4. Thai

5. Virgin Atlantic

6. Qantas

7. Continental

8. Malaysian

9. British Airways

10. Japan Airlines







So once again, the best airline of 2004 seems to be Singapore Airlines. It has won the top spot in Conde Nast Magazine’s readers poll 16 times in 17 years! According to Business Traveller, Singapore has become “the standard by which all other international airlines are judged” (Business Traveller – Asia Pacific, 1997a, p. 3). This airline is consistently profitable, even through tough times, boasting a continuous profit streak since its inception 56 years ago.”