And the Best Airline in the World is…
Skytrak announced its annual rankings for 2012. They rank all the airlines in the world by polling 18m airline cutovers around the world. And for the year 2012 (drumroll please) the top 10 airlines are:
- Qatar Airways (Qatar) – No Alliance
- Asiana Airlines (South Korea) – Star Alliance
- Singapore Airlines (Singapore) – Star Alliance
- Cathay Pacific (Hing Kong, China) – OneWorld
- ANA (Japan) – Star Alliance
- Etihad Airways (Bahrain) – No Alliance
- Turkish Airlines (Turkey) – Star Alliance
- Emirates (Dubai) – No Alliance
- Thai Airways (Thailand) – Star Alliance
- Malaysia Airlines (Malaysia) – OneWorld (Starting late-2012)
I am particularly impressed by two facts – One, all these airlines are from the Middle East or Far East (with the exception of Turkish Airlines) and Two, Star Alliance rocks. SkyTeam is noticeably missing. Last year’s list had Qantas (Australia, OneWorld) and Air New Zealand (New Zealand, Star Alliance). They were replaced this year by ANA and Malaysia Airlines. No sign of US based or European airlines…
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Turkey is culturally and geographically very much middle-eastern.
Etihad is from Abu Dhabi – UAE. Technically the bulk of Turkey is in Asia so that leaves Europe and the Americas out of the ranking. Most of the legacy airlines associate service with cost and spending and in theses days of capacity and cost control, service is the first area that is affected.
@Oussama there’s been many debates on whether TK is European or Middle Eastern. IST airport is in Europe. Culturally Turkey may be less European and more Asian but that’s subject to opinion.
Anyway TK serves far more destinations in Europe than Middle East and most of those have significant O&D to IST (i.e. not just for taking sixth freedom like the Gulf carriers). So TK cannot be considered Middle East esp. when it implies a connection to the strategy of the big Middle Eastern 3 (EK, QR, EY).
Yup…etihad is from abu dhabi, not bahrain. Gulf air is based in bahrain.
All the above airlines surely deserve to be on the list. Just flew Lufthasa First class from HKG to Munich and Frankfurt to Seattle and to put it mildly even a business class will be better on any any of the above airlines. The seats were ancient and TV screens probably would be better even in the Economy class of other airlines. Infact in the same aircraft the business class had bigger TV monitors! All the asian airlines excel even in the service standards.
TK is definitely Middle Eastern, not European.