[ChrisEmmins]

We have spent a long time trying to contact them to no avail. Hopefully the ASA will be able to establish the degree of diligence – and Skytrax will also update their website with details of who actually owns the business and answer questions that have been raised by many regarding their official ratings systems – when you are asking consumers to believe what is on your website about other businesses, transparency and proven diligence should be to the fore.

[SimonS1]

Only on one occasion have I found a review wasn’t published. However what I find questionable is how they come to the conclusion that XXX is a 4 star airline. Often this bears no relation to the reviews that people make.

[Fouvolant]

I experienced twice an unacceptable behaviour of Skytrax.

I flew Qatar last year between Nice and Dubai with stops in Milan and Doha. The food was poor and the drink selection very limited but one still can do with this. The worst part of the experience is that on the return flight Qatar-Milan – a 6 hour flight -, the crew woke us up (with full light and noise) at 3.00 am for breakfast (milan time) which means 3,5 hours before landing. When I asked the crew why the serve breakfast 3,5 hours before landing and only 2.5 hours into the flight, the answered “because after breakfast, we need time to make the plane ready for landing”!!!!! it seems they work very slowly at Qatar !

I wrote a very balanced report on Skytrax about this experience stating the facts and nothing else and the revue was never published. I then used their web facility to question them about the non publishment of my review and never got an answer.

On another occasion I wrote a review on Air France which was half positive and half negative and Skytrax published it after taking away all positive aspects my review.

Skytrax not only chooses the report they published but rewrite some reviews to give them the meaning they wish.

I will never trust Skytrax again. I indeed chose Qatar airways because of their 5 star and was very disapointed.

[capetonianm]

About 50% of the reports I’ve written on Skytrax aren’t published. Some were positive, others critical. Some of those that were published were edited for brevity but without changing significantly the points I’d made.

I prefer to think that for reasons of space, or not wishing to repeat what others have said, they only publish a sub-set of the reports submitted, and that there is no other agenda. I could be wrong, and certainly the majority of people on this board think there is an agenda. (I’m not paranoid …. looks over shoulder …..!)

[lloydah]

I’ve just had a look at Skytrax to see the quality of the comments there. I find it hard to believe the comment of 14th that refers to a gentleman in BA First being denied food and water when requested for the reason given. Makes me think people invent things for whatever reasons just to get into print. And if you don’t feel you can believe a particular post you certainly begin to wonder how many other posts are fictitious.

[RichHI1]

What I find superior in this site over most others is reviews based on events. People review because they used it. Many sites are just bitchfests. People feel abused so they vent their spleen in diatribes that betray little objectivity.
Objective reviews on real travel or some would claim simulated in some cases has more credibility. As for the rankings… Biggest laugh since Monty Python or Fawlty Towers.

[JohnHarper]

An investigation in to Skytrax would be most interesting. It’s far from transparent yet seems to carry weight.

It often seems that the scores are mostly related to travel in economy class so it’s not surprising the likes of SQ score highly as there’s no doubt some carriers offer a little more in Y than others do.

I don’t think whatever they may say that they are in any way a true reflection of F & C travel. I don’t think enough F & C travellers take time to review and I doubt many would use Skytrax if they did. The old word of mouth and more selective forums like this one are where F & C info is passed on though I suspect that many frequent travellers have knowledge of the carriers that cover their regular routes even if they have a preferred one so recommendations are less useful.

[KeaneJohn]

All of my reviews with all of my flights with Skytrax have been reviewed. They have mostly been positive however with a but could have been better in this respect………………

Read into that whatever you want.

I have noticed they have trimmed back my reviews but mostly just grammatical changes so nothing material.

[rferguson]

Lloydah….regarding the review you mention on Skytrax….I also think it’s a bit silly that Skytrax would post a review that is partly ‘third hand’. The poster starts ‘My husband paid to upgrade to First Class from Business, and told me that he asked for food and water’. Surely any review that isn’t witnessed first hand should be ignored.

[sthoffmann]

I submitted a detailed review of poor customer service by United and got a form reply from Skytrax that it could not be posted for one of a laundry list of reasons–none of them even checked to provide even a hint of what was wrong with the posts. This doesn’t inspire confidence that Skytrax is serious about reviews.

[VintageKrug]

Now Skytrax is being investigated by the ASA:

http://www.ttgdigital.com/news/asa-to-investigate-skytrax-over-airline-reviews/4684293.article

[CatherineFord]

My husband, daughter and I have had similar problems with Skytrax and Hainan Airlines. We flew with them from YYZ to PEK and back in July.

It is extremely hard to believe Hainan has a 5-star rating, given all the negative things that happened to us on both flights. I blogged about the outgoing flight the following day on TravelPod.com. The most difficult part of that flight was the high temperature, lack of water and what I call “Ninja” night service where flight attendants only served you if you were looking directly at them. Being awake and briefly turning your head away to look at the other side of the airplane was sufficient cause for them to disappear to the back of the plane while serving tea or sandwiches (but not water).

Sky tax has ignored my complaint, and responded rudely to my husband’s, even after showing proof of flight. Since my husband’s Involves the lack of carpet at his seat and his feet sticking to the floor, we’ll use other avenues for complaint (www.seatplans.com).

[Tom Otley]

Leading travel review site exposed by advertising watchdogs

[Edited: thanks VintageKrug – this was the link I meant to post, but yours below also covers the same subject]

http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?c=setreg&region=2&m_id=s~s~nvb_r&w_id=8416&news_id=2003847

[VintageKrug]

I think u mean:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5605894

[VintageKrug]

Pretty damning stuff:

Summary of Council decision:

Five issues were investigated, all of which were Upheld.

Ad
The Skytrax Research airline review website http://www.airlinequality.com, viewed in May 2012, provided an airline rating system and customer reviews for airlines and airports. Underneath the headline “Checked and Trusted Airline Reviews, in the world’s largest airline review site” were links which stated “Over 5 million Trusted customer reviews and trip reports for 681 airlines and 725 airports” and “Official Quality Star Ranking(TM) for hundreds of airlines around the world”. Clicking on the first link opened a page which stated “More than 5 million independent, traveller reviews and customer trip ratings … REAL travellers with REAL opinions!” Clicking on the Quality Star Ranking link opened a page which stated “SKYTRAX introduced the World Airline Star Rating(R) programme in 2000 … The Star Ranking programme operates in a real-time analysis format, to ensure that Airline Star Ranking levels are constantly maintained and adjusted in accordance with changes made by an airline, be this to product or service standards – on average, each airline’s Star Ranking is reviewed in depth every 2-3 months, and adjusted in accordance with the annual ratings”. Links to various Star Rating categories were featured underneath. Clicking on the link entitled “The World’s 5-Star Airlines(TM)” brought up a page which stated “TRADEMARK(TM) PROTECTION – The titles below are protected by Skytrax, and can only be used by a Registered 5-Star Airline with consent of Skytrax”. The titles listed were “5 Star Airline”, “5 Star Airlines”, “Five Star Airline” and “Five Star Airlines”.

Issue
KwikChex Ltd challenged whether:

1. the claims “Checked and trusted airline reviews” and “REAL travellers with REAL opinions!” were misleading and could be substantiated, because they understood that Skytrax did not verify the reviews on their website and therefore could not prove that they were genuine;

2. the claim “More than 5 million independent, traveller reviews and customer trip ratings” was misleading and could be substantiated;

3. the claim “Official Quality Star Ranking(TM)” was misleading, because it suggested that the ranking system was official and not the advertiser’s own creation;

4. the claim “The Star Ranking programme operates in a real-time analysis format, to ensure that Airline Star Ranking levels are constantly maintained and adjusted in accordance with changes made by an airline, be this to product or service standards – on average, each airline’s Star Ranking is reviewed in depth every 2-3 months, and adjusted in accordance with the annual ratings” was misleading and could be substantiated, because they understood that the website continued to display rankings for airlines which were no longer in business; and

5. the claim “TRADEMARK(TM) PROTECTION – The titles below are protected by Skytrax, and can only be used by a Registered 5-Star Airline with consent of Skytrax” and accompanying list were misleading, because they did not believe that those titles were trademarked.

CAP Code (Edition 12)
3.13.7Response
1. Skytrax Research (Skytrax) responded that every review submitted to their website was subjected to a robust verification procedure before being published online. They explained that every user putting forward a review was required to provide their name, country of residence, the date on which they had used the service they were reviewing and their e-mail address, and that at that point a message was displayed stating that by submitting their comment they were confirming it was a genuine review and they did not work for the airline/airport in question.

Skytrax said every review then underwent a four-stage authentication process, whereby the user’s stated location was matched to their IP address, a verification e-mail was sent to the address provided, the language of the review was manually assessed to ensure it was not abusive, offensive or otherwise unfit for publication and finally trained staff members considered the contents against known facts about the airline/airport and previous user experience to ensure it appeared to be accurate. If at any point staff suspected that the review might not be genuine, they e-mailed the user for further clarification or deleted the review altogether. Skytrax said e-mail addresses were required for authentication purposes only and were always deleted 24 hours after the review had been submitted. On 3 October, they provided examples of reviews submitted to the site in the previous 24 hours which had been rejected because they had failed one or more of the authentication tests.

Skytrax stated that, as an additional layer of security, all staff members were encouraged to look at the reviews posted on the site and raise concerns if they noticed any which seemed to be misleading. They said in practice this led them to delete reviews from the site around two to three times per month. They said airlines were also able to contact them to discuss reviews which they did not believe were authentic, and that around two to three times per year a review was removed through this process because they were satisfied that the airline had demonstrated it was potentially misleading or inaccurate. In addition, they explained that once a week the reviews on the website were scanned by software which checked for duplication in content, user names and ratings, and IP addresses purporting to be from different users; an average of one to two reviews were removed every week as a result of issues highlighted by that software.

Skytrax believed that their review verification procedure was sufficiently robust to support their claims that they checked all reviews and that the comments featured on their website came from real travellers. They said they applied more controls and manual checking of reviews before publication than any other similar review site. They stressed that they were very concerned to maintain the credibility of the reviews and that they believed there was a high level of trust on the part of both users and airlines in that part of the website. They also pointed out that the existence of a false review on the website would not influence the airline’s Star Rating, because that operated on different criteria; they therefore believed there was little interest in posting non-genuine content.

2. Skytrax stated that over 5.4 million traveller reviews and trip ratings had been submitted to their website since its inception in 1999. They explained that because of restrictions on their web space and other site management reasons they were unable to display all of those reviews, and that in 2007 they had taken the decision to limit reviews to a maximum of 10 pages for each airline, airport, etc. All reviews remained on the Skytrax database but were not accessible to the public; at any given point in time the Skytrax website would provide instant access to over 400,000 reviews. Skytrax pointed out that at the end of the tenth page of reviews, the user was shown a message which explained that older reviews had been archived. They said they had subsequently amended their claim.

Skytrax also commented that each airline or airport page contained a “score bar” which took account of reviews dating back to October 2010, when that system was introduced.

[Author]

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