Qatar Airways cleans up at the 2021 Skytrax awards – but British Airways picks up three

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• Nick says:

  1 Oct1 October 05:50

  “The Key To Europe”
  “BOAC Takes Good Care Of You”
  “Europe’s Number One”
  “Fly The Flag”
  “We’ll Take More Care Of You”
  “We Never Forget You Have A Choice”
  “Upgrade to BA”

  and, of course, “The World’s Favourite Airline”

  How times have changed!

  • Alex Sm says:

    1 Oct1 October 08:57

    and you forgot a very humble “To Fly, To Serve”

• Genghis says:

  1 Oct1 October 07:24

  It looks almost like those curry houses in Brick Lane that make up their own awards.

  • Vit says:

    1 Oct1 October 08:10

    🤣🤣🤣👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

  • marcw says:

    1 Oct1 October 08:18

    Well, they clearly get weirder and weirder. EVA Air, with barely any flights for the last 18 months, somehow scored 7th best airline. JAL, ANA, Qantas, Hainan transformed into domestic airlines…. but they somehow made it to top 10.

    Skytrax provide “nice” consultancy service though.

  • BJ says:

    1 Oct1 October 09:20

    Or some of the Quacks on Harley Street.

    • The Savage Squirrel says:

      1 Oct1 October 13:30

      Saw a great one once; he’d split out all the standard modules of the undergraduate curriculum – almost down to individual lectures – and listed them on his website … just making them seem like they were all separate advanced courses that he’d been on; without ever quite saying it overtly.

      (for the uninitiated, presence on Harley Street proves that … you rented a room on Harley Street. The REAL top guys/gals don’t need to waste money on this form of advertising (it ain’t cheap) as they are highly in demand anyway; so you’re deliberately filtering out the best practitioners if you choose to go here)

  • Paul Pogba says:

    1 Oct1 October 09:32

    Or New Yorks Worlds Best Coffee : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIiu89zKa4U

  • Sam says:

    1 Oct1 October 10:37

    Sounds about right, especially ‘best airline in the UK’- seriously? It’s either BA or VS let’s face it, so where is the point of having that?

    Also how comparable is ‘Best Premium Economy Onboard Catering’ with ‘world’s Best Premium Economy’? May as well have the best Premium Economy TV, best Premium Economy blanket, best Premium Economy lavatory, best Premium Economy pillow and the list goes on…

    • Bagoly says:

      1 Oct1 October 14:00

      If “in the UK” means domestic, then how would Virgin get in?!
      Easyjet
      Loganair
      Eastern Airways 🙂

      If it means “UK owned” then add:
      Jet2

      If it means, “with lots of flights with one end in the UK” then add
      Aer Lingus
      KLM
      Ryanair 🙁
      Wizzair
      Emirates??

      • Sam says:

        1 Oct1 October 15:27

        I think the identifier is any airline with a UK AOC which means that Ryanair and Norwegian will certainly qualify for this award. But the sun might rise in the west if Easyjet, Loganair, Eastern Airways ever won the ‘best airline in the UK’ let’s not lie to ourselves…how comparable is ‘the best airline in the United Kingdom’ then when there are only perhaps two airlines who would win it realistically???

        Also there are separate skytrax awards for the low-cost airlines, so Easyjet and Jet2 won’t fall in this category anyway.

    • Dubious says:

      2 Oct2 October 05:12

      Perhaps better structured if they followed the unbunddling theme…
      ‘Best Hand Baggage Only’,
      ‘Best Excess Luggage Charges’
      ‘Best Seat Selection Service (for a fee)’
      ‘Best Lounge Access Policy’

• John T says:

  1 Oct1 October 08:03

  Easyjet charges for hand luggage – how are they now a low-cost carrier??

  • John T says:

    1 Oct1 October 08:03

    *not a low cost carrier

• Lemeng says:

  1 Oct1 October 08:34

  A thin grip on reality is a good way to describe Skytrax.

  • Alex Sm says:

    1 Oct1 October 08:59

    Does anyone know how their assessment system works? All these star ratings. They are not awarded by the public, but apparently by their in-house assessors. They are constantly recruiting but no one ever run a story like “One day of a Skytrax reviewer”. Must be a very plush job

    • LHR Secrets says:

      1 Oct1 October 16:08

      They get paid to audit the airline to provide the star rating, which is curious because, does that mean every airline pays? It is a difficult thing to dig into as the airlines love the publicity of the process, so its a bit of a closed shop. What I am beginning to find is that airlines appear to be defaulted to 3* and are only ever 4* or 5* if they have paid for the audit process……

      What I have seen is that the auditors fly out and around the airline on a schedule, with the tickets issued by the airline on ID ticket bases. They are not incognito, everyone is very much aware they are flying.

      They then issue a report on what to do to improve; usually to improve to 5*. The contents would not appear rocket science to anyone involved in aviation and some of them are perhaps questionable in their need etc. It terms of quality, it is of little output, a real management agency or audit would also provide routes to reach that.

      One other thing I found recently is that apples and apples are not compared to result in the scores it seems. Take a look at Hainan’s lounge, it gets 5* for noodle bar, it does appear on Lufthansa’s lounge for example!?

• Bradford Elba says:

  1 Oct1 October 08:49

  these are like your typical airline awards. the more you pay, the more you get. just like first class costs more than economy. these awards are no different. at least they are keeping it consistent.

• ChrisC says:

  1 Oct1 October 08:55

  Two sites that I don’t rate at all

  One is Seat Guru and the other is Skytrax.

  How can it give an award for best seat when it hadn’t even been installed on any planes?.

  • Rob says:

    1 Oct1 October 09:11

    … and still won’t be for a few years 🙂

• Gavin says:

  1 Oct1 October 09:02

  It always annoyed me that they rated Air Koyro as their only 1 star airline (has now been removed). It seemed to just be a clickbait thing to me given it was picked up by many tabloids, blogs etc. Having flown that airline, they were not bad!

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    1 Oct1 October 11:23

    What about Lufthansa as a 5 star airline!

• Ed says:

  1 Oct1 October 12:03

  How did EK get 4th best business class? Whilst its A380 business is quite acceptable and has some nice touches such as the bar, it is nothing special with a cavernous cabin, and I would also contend that the catering is poor. Meanwhile, EK’s B777 business is appalling with 2-3-2 seating and sub standard food.

  EK is good in First and Economy but does not deserve any award for its business class.

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