There are so many ways to rank airlines: size, profitability, destinations reached, value for money and so on.

I would like to concentrate for now on the customer experience as a traveller.  Most of my trips have been for business, therefore mainly in business class, sometimes in first and occasionally in economy on Australian domestic and intra continental flights.  So I do realise my view might not be applicable to everyone.

Still, I would be curious if other share my views on which airlines offer the best customer experience, either for business travel or for other purpose and “category” (ie value for money).

In terms of customer experience, I reckon we all tend to take for granted some basics, especially in terms of safety and reliability.  Airlines which are systematically late or have a dodgy safety record are crap even if – say – the meal is awesome.  But I find that on average most major airlines tend to get from point to point with sufficient broad reliability and there are several surveys indicating the on time performance of different carriers.

So beyond the point of basic reliability what I care about is:

– Seat Comfort: most of my flights are long in duration, often two legs of 8-10 hours each or more.  Seat comfort is important.  Best seats recline to fully horizontal 180 position.  Not just flat but also parallel to the floor.  Worst are those that do not open up to a bed position, but trying to sleep on an incline is also painful.  Further, I like seat configuration where each window seat is also an isle seat, so configuration 1-2-1 not the 2-2-2 you see sometimes, let alone the horrific 2-3-2 with a middle seat (in business) that has neither isle nor window access.

Not all airlines have a consistent offering but good ones are: Etihad, Emirates, Cathay, Singapore (not all seats) and depending on row number Swiss, Finnair.  Delta, BA and Air Canada also ok.  Most airlines are improving.

On the bad ones apart from obvious suspects amongst the majors I would say Qantas, Lufthansa, American and United are consistently disappointing.

– Food and Drinks:  I do not drink alcohol so when I say drinks I mean mainly range of soft drinks.  And I do care sometimes about food.  My view on airplane food is that is should be simple, broad in interest to be good for both meat eaters and vegans, available (some airlines make an art of not carrying enough items) and a good range of healthy as well as pleasantly junky items.

Singapore Airlines has for me consistently been the best.  Turkish also not bad.

The one I dislike is – sadly – once again Qantas.  A pretentious menu with Wild Boar and Cus cus Polenta (or similar) but if I just want a simple prawn or chicken I cannot find it.

– Entertainment: With the new regulations allowing the use of electronic devices also during take off and landings, this category has decreased in importance, because I can carry my own content.  So in a way the first criterion is “please let me use my ipad” and not all airlines yet do.  Beyond that, a bit of a much of a muchness, however I find that Emirates, Qatar, Turkish, Etihad and Singapore have the broadest and most international/recent library of movies.

I like some of the US carriers who offer live TV and a special mention to United that on the audio channel 9 allows passengers (at Captain’s discretion) to hear communications between plane and control towers; I always find it entertaining.

– Service:  The best service is the one where you do not feel sorry for asking.  Some airlines are so good it seems that flight attendants really care, they are always making you feel important and liked.  Most Asian based airlines and the Middle Eastern airlines are very good.  European and Australian carriers are ok with occasional misses.  The worst: obviously North American airlines.  I think everyone who has flown in domestic US or international for that matter would have their own stories of extreme rudeness.  The classic: “what do you want?” when asking for drinks can only be heard with American carriers.  There are individual exceptions of course of wonderful flight attendants but by and large if one wishes to experience bad service, just book any of United, US Air, American and you will be served… Delta a bit better.  By the way, this extends to ground services (check in etc) it is difficult even by design to do worse than United and American Airlines.