[SimonS1]

@Canucklad – fair comments but I suspect the voting is indicative of the general readership of the magazine.

For example I’d be surprised if more than a tiny fraction of BT subscribers ever set foot on Westjet. Whereas the numbers using BA short haul (whether due to corporate policy or just route network) will always be disproportionately high.

Either way these awards make for a good bit of PR for the winners but ultimately does anyone take any notice of them in terms of buying behaviour?

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

If you asked someone in Manchester what was the best football team then they’d probably say Manchester City / United. Ask someone in Melbourne and they may say Collingwood / Richmond which is a different sport altogether! I guess the survey is UK centric so will have a bias towards BA – who have a very strong brand recognition.

Heathrow may well be voted one of the bets airports if you only use BA and use Terminal 5 – or Star Alliance and only terminal 2. If you had to use T3 or T4 I doubt Heathrow would make the Top 100 airports. So results will skew perception of this – especially if your frequent airport of departure.

No idea how Qatar can win best airline. The Business Class is massively inconsistent – poor soul if you hoped for an 787 and end up on an A330. Likewise Canucklad right about economy on the 787 economy. And service very much “robotesque”. No idea how Etihad doesn’t make it.

Like all these things you just have to take the results with a pinch of salt. I just feel for all the poor sods who believe that BA are the best in a particular category. It means they must only fly them and have had the covers firmly over there eyes. Once the fly with a half decent carrier in a premium carrier they might realize what they have missed out on – maybe that fear of discovering something better drives them back to reliable BA (who to be fair have a consistent Premium product on longhaul flights).

[icenspice]

Comme d’hab.

More a recollection of paths well trodden.

[FDOS_UK]

TimFitzgeraldTC – 14/10/2015 13:01 BST

I agree with everything you said.

esselle – 14/10/2015 12:51 BST

Agree about the age of the first class cabin, what is relevant is how differentiated it is from the competition. BA’s First product was still a world beater in the early 2000s, even though over 5 years old. The service is as important as the seat in F.

rferguson – 14/10/2015 12:45 BST

I take quite a lot of day flights in Y on both EK and EY, my next being tomorrow.

The service is not disjointed in my experience and the food and IFE are both streets ahead of BA, especially on EK. EK has the best IFE I have ever experienced.

BA’s 9 abreast seating on the 777 is a lot better, but not to last, from what I gather – unfortunately. I’ve never been on a EK/EY aircraft that was not spotless.

QR (tried once) and EK have a great economy product on the A380, which I use and it is actually enjoyable on a 6-7 hour day flight. haven’t tried EY’s yet as they don’t fly it to Manchester.

IMO, the best loco airline (shorthaul at least) in EMEA should be FlyDubai.

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Slightly different – but love this from Yes Minister:

Bernard Woolley: Well the party have had an opinion poll done and it seems all the voters are in favour of bringing back National Service.

Sir Humphrey: Well have another opinion poll done to show that they’re against bringing back National Service.

Bernard Woolley: They can’t be for and against
…
Sir Humphrey: Oh, of course they can Bernard! Have you ever been surveyed?

Bernard Woolley: Yes, well not me actually, my house … Oh I see what you mean

Sir Humphrey: You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don’t want to look a fool, do you?

Bernard Woolley: No

Sir Humphrey: So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?

Bernard Woolley: Yes

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think there is lack of discipline in our Comprehensive Schools?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think they respond to a challenge?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?

Bernard Woolley: Oh, well I suppose I might.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes or no?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey: Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can’t say no to that. So they don’t mention the first five questions and they publish the last one.

Bernard Woolley: Is that really what they do?

Sir Humphrey: Well, not the reputable ones, no, but there aren’t many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result.

Bernard Woolley: How?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Are you worried about the growth of armaments?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think there’s a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think it’s wrong to force people to take arms against their will?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?

Bernard Woolley: Yes.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: There you are, you see, Bernard. The perfect balanced sample.

[FDOS_UK]

Excellent, Tim 🙂

[EU_Flyer]

Perhaps familiarity also breeds contempt in some cases.

People who use T5 a lot probably either love it or hate it. For most the ‘wow’ factor of a product goes away when you use it frequently – no matter how good it was the first time.

On the flipside, when one only uses – for example- Changi 2/3 times a year -perhaps they’re more inclined to retain a positive impression and express that in surveys like this.

Personally I have a soft spot for BA. I don’t think they’re the best (I know them too well for that) but perhaps if I was a regular on another decent airline (say KLM or Turkish) and I flew BA as a one off in Club on their A380 upper deck with a great charming crew – I’d probably have very favorable impressions of BA and might be influenced by those when voting.

In any case, I love reading these surveys. They promote this kind of interesting debate and remind me of the airlines I’d still love to fly and haven’t.

[MrMichael]

I recall chatting with a market research company a few years ago when we were considering doing a public survey as people waited for trains on the East Coast mainline. The survey was on the subject of actual reliability v perceptions of the trains to/from London. We were asked what result we wanted, and this depending on what we wanted would influence when the survey was done, sunny days, rainy days, days with or without delays etc. When we said we had no advance view on what we wanted, we just wanted a fair crack at the majority view to compare perceptions v reality they were rather astonished.

[NTarrant]

I have completed this survey annually for many years now. Go back 10 years and I would have been very BA centric as that is who I mainly travelled on, so BA was getting my vote. Being in the Middle East my travel habits have changed and the responses to the survey have changed.

What I do worry about in these surveys is how reliable some of the responses are. For example I have not travelled on a US airline since 2007 so I don’t answer that question as I can’t give an honest answer, I don’t answer the low cost airline question as I have never flown on one (sorry that’s not true, Flynas is but not European!). How many people have answered questions about airlines or hotels based on colleagues, friends, BT forum or hearsay?

It would be good if BT published the results of the question which airlines have you flown on in the last 12 months as that would give an idea as to the airlines respondents have travelled on.

[dutchyankee]

@NTarrant – 16/10/2015 07:10 BST

I think that is a very good point, as I must admit to being guilty of voting for a couple of the categories based on friends or colleagues comments if I hadn’t tried the products mentioned, or even based on a perceived reputation of the companies.

[Mark Caswell]

Here’s the full list of this year’s awards:

https://www.businesstraveller.com/awards2016

[esselle]

As ever, I am bewildered by some of these results.

How can BA First be rated more highly than Etihad?

[MartynSinclair]

Or the Concorde lounge be marked above the LH F lounge…

Unless of course it’s determined only by how many votes are cast by the readers…

[FaroFlyer]

That’s the problem with surveys, and Referenda.

No qualifications are needed to vote, and those who organise them are forced to abide by the results 🙂

[EU_Flyer]

Nice to see Aegean rating.

[Author]

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