Airline awards

I agree with The Cranky Flier‘s recent entry about best airline surveys.

Even with my extensive travelling (400 flights in 12 months on a wide range of routes on some 30 airlines in all clases) I do not feel equipped to make a definitive judgement about which airline is best. When I visited Wendy Perrin of The Perrin Post she asked me for my picks for best airline in several categories. I felt unable to answer from personal experience, although I offered a shortlist and referred to advice from the many thousands of frequent flyers on Flyer Talk.

There are a lot of industry awards and some results are rather strange. Like the year British Airways won Best Airline when it had a long running strike and terrible problems with baggage handling, or when Virgin Blue won Best Frequent Flyer Program – Australia just weeks after launching their Velocity Rewards FFP. With results like these I view such awards as popularity contests rather an indicator of which airline(s) have the best product, service, etc.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.