COMMENT: The World’s best Airlines

AirHelp, a technology company founded in Silicon Valley in 2013, has come up with its fifth airline ranking review since it established its reports in 2015.

It makes for interesting reading.  But what one person thinks is value for money, or quality, is probably different from the individual sitting in the next seat. 

Business Travel News  believes that the most important thing in air travel is consistency. Passengers are entitled to the same standard on every flight.  That way you know what you are paying for and expect.  It is called keeping your customers happy (and making sure they use you next time).
 
While some airlines constantly receive good reviews, there are some in the listing whose names might surprise you.

AirHelp's ranking of 86 airlines takes into account a number of metrics in three key areas to come up with an overall score. This includes:

Quality and Service: AirHelp factors in details from Skytraxresearch.com to help determine an airline's quality both on and off the ground. This includes airport service, airline lounge, seats, in-flight meals, entertainment, cabin staff and comfort.

On-Time Performance: The company considered how many fights on the examined period (December 2016 – March 2017) arrived on time.

Claim Processing: How efficiently each airline handled complaints and compensations claims, including how responsive the airline is, how good its internal claim handling procedures are, and how quickly it paid out for valid claims.

"As the marketplace becomes more saturated, the winners in the air travel race will be companies that deliver on their promises on the ground, in-cabin and post-flight," said AirHelp CEO and co-founder Henrik Zillmer.


Here is the top 20 Airhelp airlines in reverse order.

Take a look on the Airhelp website for those carriers whose after-flight service needs attention 

20.      A true low-cost carrier (LCC) Transavia is part of the Air France/KLM Group. It is the only LCC in the top twenty. 7.75 is very good.

19.      Air Baltic Corporation, Latvia.  The figure is good considering it has over the last year become the first airline in the world to introduce an entirely new and advanced aircraft, the Bombardier C Series 300.  7.76 is a fine achievement.

18.     Aeroflot Russian Airlines.  This airline's relatively high ranking might surprise some people at 7.77 but even compensation claims are dealt with fairly quickly.

17.    Eurowings — The German airline scored a 7.79 overall, largely due to its 8.75 punctuality rating. However, it only received a 6.0 for its quality and service.

16.    Air Canada — The Canadian airline's high quality and service score (8.0) made up for its poor punctuality score (6.58). Its overall rating was 7.81.

15.    Emirates — The UAE airline scored an 8 for its quality and service and a 7.8 for punctuality. Its overall tally was 7.82.

14.    Air Malta — A good on-time score of 8.71 gave the airline an overall 7.89.

13    Widerøe — The regional Norwegian airline had lower scores for quality and service, but an impressive 9.47 for on-time performance.

12.    Air France — The French airline scores high for quality and service, getting a 7.92 overall.  Time keeping is poor.

11.    KLM — The Dutch airline landed an 8 for quality and service, and a 7.94 score overall.

10.    TUI — A holiday airline that scores with a  9.05 punctuality record. It only managed 6 for quality and service.

9.     Aer Lingus — An 8.75 on-time score gave the Irish carrier an overall 7.97.

8.     Virgin Atlantic Airways — Just shy of an overall score of 8 the benchmark for a good airline.  Virgin Atlantic hit 7.99 thanks to its high quality and service score of 8.7.   

7.     British Airways — The Heathrow-based carrier was the first on this listing to hit the top 8 mark, with an overall score of 8.14. Claim processing was good but to retain or even improve its score next time around it needs to ensure any residue from its recent IT troubles is sorted quickly.

6.    Air Dolomiti — The Lufthansa owned Italian airline delivered an impressive punctuality score of 8.96 and an overall rating of 8.22.

5.    Air Transat — The Canadian leisure operator may have only hit a 6 for quality and service, but its 9.9 score for punctuality is extremely impressive. This combined with a claims processing score of 8.96, delivered it an overall 8.29.

4.    Austrian Airlines — Another high score for claim processing (8.97) combined with an 8.18 for on-time performance gave it an overall 8.38.  It did much better than Lufthansa (27) its partner airline in the Group of that name.

3.    Qatar Airways — The third highest quality and most punctual airline on the list, it was down from first place last year. Qatar landed a 10 for quality and service, getting an overall 8.46.

2.    Etihad Airways — Another 10 for quality and service put Etihad in second place at 8.48 overall, despite a 6.83 in claim processing.

1.    Singapore Airlines — The highest quality and most punctual airline in the world received a 8.73 overall mark from AirHelp Score. This was thanks to a 10 for quality and service and 8.7 for on-time performance.  Singapore Airlines’ significant improvements with timekeeping and claim processing surged the Asian airline to the top spot among 87 airlines for the first time.

www.airhelp.com/en/airhelp-score/airline-ranking

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Sheila CTC, United States

Where were Qantas and Air New Zealand?