Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 17 total)

  • Anonymous
    Guest

    Airpocket
    Participant

    It’s the time of year when every magazine (Conde Nast, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, Travel & Leisure, Wanderlust) and the odd website (Skytrax) comes out with its list of Best Airline, Hotel, Destination etc., you get the idea. I’ve always doubted the accuracy of these surveys considering these media outlets depend so heavily on the airlines and hotel chains for advertising revenue. So, seeing that BT readers probably aren’t swayed by advertising income, perhaps we should compile our own list of Best (and Worst!) providers? We already have an idea of the best and worst aiports in Europe. Perhaps we should expand on that?
    Here’s a list of possible categories, please feel free to add or recommend your own:
    Best/Worst Short Haul European Carrier (includes the no-frills carriers), Long-haul carrier.
    Best/Worst SE Asian/Far Eastern short-haul carrier (for exapmle Air Asia), long-haul carrier.
    And so on for Africa, North America, South America, Australasia.
    The same applies for airports,too.
    Rock the vote, as they say across the Atlantic!


    SimonRowberry
    Participant

    Great idea, Airpocket, but how would that sit alongside the official BT awards? Especially if our views and theirs were diametrically opposed. Also, how would we prevent people who have clear and stated preference for, or intense dislike of, particular carriers (you all know whom I mean!) skewing the results?

    BT Forum’s Best Business Class of the Year – Ryanair, etc (you know what I’m suggesting!).


    Hess963
    Participant

    Hi everyone!!!

    That is really quite amusing to think of !! Probably BT will close down this forum when we start to impeach the credibility of their own survey.
    Would you open a new platform?? Just let us keep this way–more important is–everyone can state his/her own opinion over one’s experience freely in this forum without BT censuring every word or comments!!!

    Business Traveller replies:

    This is very interesting, but we should make a few points.

    The Business Traveller awards are voted for by our readers, not by members of staff at Business Traveller, the commercial team, or the airlines or hotels themselves…

    If you are a subscriber you will have been invited to vote in those awards, and we hope you did so. The results will be published in full online on Monday September 21.

    This forum, and the website as a whole, has a different, but overlapping readership from the magazine, and so will probably come up with some different results. If they are different, it won’t ‘impeach’ our results, it simply means one set of readers disagrees with another set.

    It is also difficult to see how votes can be collated in this forum (it’s difficult enough collating opinions at times).

    There’s also the small matter of methodology. To give you one example, it’s not uncommon for us to receive sudden requests by a West End newsagent for several hundred copies of the issue of Business Traveller that the awards survey is enclosed with. As you can imagine, we, and the independent consultancy which runs these awards for us, take precautions against such actions. If the forum is suddenly overwhelmed by positive comments about a particular airline, it’s difficult to be sure whether these are genuine or come from the personal accounts of an airline’s management.

    Nevertheless, all opinions are welcome. And in case you need some inspiration for categories, here is last year’s results in full:

    http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/2008-business-traveller-awards


    Airpocket
    Participant

    Yes, it’s very easy for the integrity of the selection process to be abused in that as some of you have suggested, people can be biased towards certain airlines and chains.
    Perhaps one selection criteria might be to ask voters to provide us with copies of boarding card stubs to prove that they actually used an airline that they are commenting on/voting for. This would rule out people who like/don’t like a certain airline from voting for/against it. The same principle would, of course, apply to hotels and airports.
    Not sure what other BT readers think but there is always a whiff of favouritism and, dare I say, corruption in the annual surveys carried out by ST Travel Magazine and Conde Nast Traveller.Big Media and Big Travel (not to mention Big Tobacco) are natural bed fellows.Wait…does that mean we have a three-way going?! :o)


    Airpocket
    Participant

    As far as being juxtaposed with BT’s official survey goes, I think the ‘unofficial’ survey would complement it nicely. For instance, the BT survey doesn’t take into account the worst of the travel industry and I’ve always thought that it is just as important to highlight the shortcomings of the Ryanair’s of this world as it is to praise the professionalism of the SQs.
    Also, the ‘unoffical’ survey need not be temporally limited; it could be carried out bi-annually, rather than annually.


    NTarrant
    Participant

    In any surveys it does very much depend on how the result is gained. I would give more credability to BT survey as it is readers survey which involves completing online or paper form and posting.

    I don’t take the other magazines Airpocket mentions so I can’t comment on how they gather the awards, but if they are decided by a “panel of experts” then they certainly won’t float my boat! I know from an award given in transport that out of the six elements that make up the criteria only one is customer focus, the rest are irrelevant to the customer and therefore an award could be given to a company that has say the right environmental policy but has a poor customer record.

    I do feel that in asking for the “worst” in any survey it does open the door to saying say Ryanair for customer service even though the responder has never travelled with them.


    Hess963
    Participant

    Hi everyone!!

    So how about some comments from the others over the recent BT survey 2009?? BA and VS was not that a surprise?? I posted my opinion in the BA vs. VS who wins..thread.

    I am dumbstruck and find it hard to understand the results?


    NTarrant
    Participant

    Hi Hess, Not sure why you would be dumbstruck over the results for BA and VS. If you look at the BA v VS thread, Airpocket has hit the nail on the head. Its a UK based survey and as he says most people will be flying with them.

    It would be interesting to know what percentage of numbers of departures from LHR are BA, VS, BD and then the others as a group by region. Of course BT do have an Asia survey (I think) and that would be interesting to see.

    You also have to look at the route networks, BA fly to more destinations around the world than any other airline from LHR, direct, not everyone wishes to change at AMS, FRA, DXB etc. But you may ask why does Emirates feature but KLM does not, it is down to route network. Friends of mine who live in EDI went to India via DXB on the direct flight from EDI.

    Then there is the fact that us on this forum is not fully representative of business travellers, we trade experiences and advice (and insults from time to time!), some of us are know for our views on particular airlines. Of course the whole process is subjective but the survey is the customer view. I would be suprised if BA and VS were not in the top five

    Hope that is of interest. By the way, I was suprised that Four Seasons won the hotel award, I would have thought that Hilton/Intercontinental/Sheraton would have been higher.


    Hess963
    Participant

    Hi everyone, Hi NTarrant !!

    You’re right NTarrant! I forgot that the Survey was mostly for subscribers/readers on the British Isles%Ireland and some probably from the Continent. It is a British edition of BT (stresses British here).
    It is true that BA, VS …have the most share of pax ex Britain, but that does not mean that the quality of their flights they experienced reflects the size of pax traffic from Britain. In the survey for example you are asked which airlines provides the best this or that and not only the sole question: best airline and this sole question does not cover every performance of this airline. That is why I am asking myself what did the voters have though when they casted their votes? Or just simply thought BA and VS because they flew with them oftenly and that is it. Do the majority of the voters do not make any difference at all?
    Do not get me wrong, sure BA and VS have good aspects like great lounges in LHR. The seats in C being full flat. Randomly fantastic food quality and excellent service attitude of F/A s. But the consistence and overall package is not that good for both airlines in the past 12 months in order to be elevated to be winner or third place.

    I am really curious what the BT Asia Pacific Survey 2009 will give us as a comparison. If Airpocket’s assumption is right, the subscribers/readers of BT Asia Pacific will be voting CX, SQ, TG, NH, MH as the possible winners and BA, VS…from Europe&UK will be not or less possible to be winners in the major categories.

    So are the frequent pax of today independent beings who judge due to their experiences or do tend to be influenced so easily by airlines ads. Or survey reports.


    NTarrant
    Participant

    I think you raise some interesting questions here Hess. I am not sure that the majority of business travellers would vote because they saw an advertisment in the media. I would like to think that business travellers were a little more enlightened to fall for the ad mans campagins.

    There probably is something to be said for people voting for something because they “heard about from where ever”. There are a number of questions I leave blank in the survey because, for example, I don’t travel to India so I would not have a clue who was the best Indian airline. Why would I want to tick say Jet if I have not flown with them.

    There could also be some true in the fact that people do tick the box for the airline they travel the most, but logic will tell you that if you don’t like something then you don’t vote for it. We business travellers are a funny lot, quite a few years ago I was waiting to board a BA flight at MAN and a lady was handing out the standard BA questionaire form but seemed to be avoiding men and women in suits. She briefly made eye contact with me and went to go to the person behind and I said “oh, don’t I get one then” she then said “would you fill one in” I said I would be happy to she then said “oh you are nice, most people I ask in suits are rude and don’t want one”.

    One final thing about the survey, at least one is able to complete the form or on line at ones own leisure and can pick it up and put it down again, think about the questions and answer honestly. Not like the garage I used to take my car to that trust a questionaire in front of me and asked me to complete it there and then and hand it back. When I refused the guy asked why I said that I could hardly be honest if I had to hand it back there and then. The firm would then only get the answer it wants to hear and not the real answer


    Airpocket
    Participant

    I think that for a truly representative survey, travellers should be polled from all over the world. Unfortunately, not everyone has heard of BT and nor is it readily available. For instance, the Asian edition of BT hasn’t been available for some time now; coudn’t get in Bombay and couldn’t get it in Singapore.
    Outlook Traveller, a rather good Indian travel magazine, conducts its own surveys and, surprise,surprise, BA and VS don’t really feature as much whereas the SE Asian carriers do.


    Hess963
    Participant

    Hi everyone!!

    I just want to share a comparison to the results of BT Survey 2009 for Best Airline of the Year with the result of Skytrax. The result reflects in my opinion the contemporary view of frequent flyers in all classes and regions. You will see beside SQ–BA and VS do not even reached top ten.

    1. Cathay Pacific Airways
    2.Singapore Airlines
    3. Asiana Airlines
    4. Qatar Airways
    5. Emirates
    6. Qantas Airways
    7. Etihad Airways
    8. Air New Zealand
    9. Malaysia Airlines
    10. Thai Airways


    Airpocket
    Participant

    My guess is that the Skytrax survey is more representative of world-wide flyers which is why the presence of BA and VS has been diluted, as it were.

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