[Anonymous]

[rferguson]

Congratulations to Cathay Pacific – Winner of the 2014 award. And much deserved IMHO.

Quite a few surprises for me:
– Air France winning ‘Best First Class Lounge’. BA was at #7 and Qantas’ amazing F lounges a lower ranked 9 (NO way).
– BA’s J class lounges rated above VS Clubhouses (again disagree).
– Saudia’s accolades. Best economy seats, #2 most improved airline, best F class amenities. Congrats.
– Best european airline – Turkish. Again not in agreement there.

The UK airlines fared poorly – both BA and Virgin Atlantic struggled to make it into the top 10 of any category. And were completely absent from the categories that counted – best F/J/Y class. Best F/J/Y class seats. Best catering in F/J/Y. Perhaps not surprising.

http://www.worldairlineawards.com/

[Xuluman]

Interesting read, but same as you, I don’t agree with half the awards.

[IanFromHKG]

Yeah, I don’t think the awards are terribly credible. Although some are (arguably) deserved, others throw the validity of the awards into question!

I did amuse myself though by looking at the position of the alliances. oneworld take first and second spots, but otherwise unrepresented. Impressive, but seems to show some lack of consistent high quality

Star get 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10. That’s a pretty decent showing – although IMHO for the FF, oneworld offers better alliance benefits, but that’s by the by

SkyTeam get one spot, at seventh – Garuda. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[BrotherJim]

Ian, have you flown Garuda latley? They have really come along in the past few years and are a top niche market airline.

What lets them down is CGK airport, but that is outside the scope of the awards.

Out of interest they took out top spot for best cabin crew

[MrMichael]

Iberia, 5th most improved……not my experience I must say. It gets me to where I need to go, that’s it. Flying Iberia in business or econ has never been even close to being a pleasure. Their punctuality is good, they never lose me or my luggage, but a pleasant travel experience, I don’t think so. With the IAG deal I expected improvements, but never actually saw any. Although to be fair, the inflight magazine is a little less dog eared of late! When possible I will use a BA flight.

[Dominic Sebastian Lalk]

Hi Ian,

Etihad seems to agree with your comments on the credibility/validity of these awards. Hence their opt-out of the awards this year as we reported in June:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/100580/etihad-airways-leaves-skytrax

On another note, Garuda has indeed come a long way and as far as the majority of our readers are concerned they’re doing something right – there’s been a lot of positive feedback across all service classes.

We’ve also done a couple of Tried & Tested staff reviews on them:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/tried-and-tested/airlines/garuda-indonesia

[stevescoots]

I am more likely to trust fifa having impartiality when choosing a world cup location than Skytrax awards actually resembling reality

[IanFromHKG]

BrotherJim (and domlalk) – I am well aware of the great strides that Garuda have made (after all, they were banned from EU airspace until a few years ago), although to be honest I still struggle to think of them as being one of the world’s top ten airlines.

However, I was really looking at the position of the alliances overall, rather than individual airlines, so my mirth was derived more from the fact that SkyTeam only managed to get one airline in the top ten, and even then they only scraped into seventh place, with an airline that only joined SkyTeam this year so without them SkyTeam would have an even worse showing.

[canucklad]

I must admit I find some of the awards baffling, and if you look deeper some just don’t make sense. As rferguson mentions in his opening post ..…Turkish… Really !!

My congratulations to Westjet, 2nd best North American airline after Air Canada and yet it’s a LCC !!! They must be spitting nails south of the 49th …lol

And I’m sure Cathay must be breathing a sigh of relief that their deserved award didn’t rely on recognising Ian’s loyalty … : )

And I wonder why Etihad changed their mind…… : )

Mr Peter Baumgartner, CCO, Etihad Airways
“The Skytrax World Airline Awards represent a global benchmark for airline excellence because they go straight to the source – the traveller. To be recognised and named by our guests as the best in the world is an affirmation of the value of our unique philosophy and innovation. “

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbhITktzdBw

[JohnHarper]

I guess we’ve all puzzled about these awards at times in the past. I now find myself wondering why when people who post here regularly give Skytrax no credibility do their awards bother us?

IMO Etihad made the right decision to walk away. Frequent travellers have their favourites anyway and the vast majority of others have their criteria for booking be it price or convenience. Does anyone really take any notice of Skytrax except Skytrax?

[PeterCoultas]

What about a worst airlines award – could be extended to worst airports as well?

[Bath_VIP]

Would interested in people’s views on this!

Priority Pass award best lounge in their program to…..

https://www.prioritypass.com/Press/Jamaicas-Club-Kingston-Global-Lounge-of-the-Year-2014.cfm

[Author]

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