Most of us do a fair bit of travelling to races, for business, etc. With that in mind perhaps you may find the following report interesting.
I agree that Cathay Pacific is an outstanding airline. I had a delightful flight on a beautiful Airbus A340 from Toronto to Hong Kong. The food and service were very good, and the aircraft, the current longest range commercial aircraft, was a dream.
I think Northwest Airlines should get an honorable mention, especially here in Detroit with the new McNamara Terminal, which is not only beautiful, but also easy to use (with the possible exception of the transfer up the stairs from baggage claim over the walkway and back down to the taxi stand.)
I’ve had great experiences with Northwest and was surprised they weren’t on the list actually. Here you go:
travelled several times with them when living in OZ. took my bike with me and once had a disc. they damaged it big time (or the TSA guys did it)…Went to their office and oh surprise, they said ‘wow, we are truly sorry. Please give us a week to send you a check for your wheel. This should have not happened, and we hope you will still choose qantas to travel’
They paid for a new disc and gave a bit more to apologize for the inconvenience.
and I am not surprised to see singapore airlines and british airways up there…
not surprised either not to see Air France. Last time we flew with them, the blanket of may-lise truly smelt like puke, may-lise says so to the flight attendant who says ‘yes, and so? what do you want me to do? wash it?’
No mention of major US carriers on the list. No surprise.
It’s time to repeal the silly protectionist legislation that prevents good foreign carriers like Cathay from offering flights between the mainland and Hawai’i. This protectionism allows UAL, AA, et al to gouge us and foist crappy service on us. Write your legislator today!
Service is down on the list as to why alot of them are in serious trouble…fuel prices and union pensions and wages are killing the majors along with pressure from the budget carriers.
They may treat passengers decently, but don’t fool yourself, Cathay Pacific is terrible at treating their employees like human beings. Work there and be prepared to be fired without cause.
That’s correct. Their lousy service isn’t hurting them – because they enjoy an oligopoly on many routes – people in many parts of the country don’t have a choice.
UAL and AA have hoarded gates that they don’t need at many airports, preventing low-cost carriers like SWA from coming in. And our dear Congress locks out foreign carriers from domestic routes, so the domestic carriers don’t have to compete against them either.
Whenever, UAL and AA actually do have to compete, they lose. Like Amtrak and the Post Office, they benefit from govt. protected monopoly power. They deserve to go out of business.
I thought that locking foreign carriers out of domestic routes was pretty much tit for tat because other countries won’t let US carriers have their domestic routes either.
I like Northwest because they’re generally good at getting me where I want to go on time and with a minimum of fuss. However, I fell like that’s largely because I always go through their Memphis hub, which is easy to wrangle your way around, and generally doesn’t let planes get all stacked up and delayed. (cough Atlanta cough) Every time I have to deal with Detroit and the McNamara terminal, I end up in one of those “we’re changing your departure gates 4 different times” and while I can get myself to the right gate and plane at the end, my luggage is another matter.
Favorite US regional carrier people on the coasts generally haven’t heard of: Midwest Express. JetBlue ripped off their customer service manual and is getting credit for inventing what Midwest Express has done for 20+ years.
If you read further down the article it states to the effect that most American carriers do short flights in USA whereas the airlines making the list for the most part are long distance carriers (i.e. service more important on long haul vs short haul)
I have to promote American Airlines in spite of the fact that they don’t make the best airlines list. I work with a medical and dental team that spends a week at a time in the Dominican Republic, and AA has given us HUGE discounts on our flights, even during tourist season, when we are paying but a small fraction of what the airline could make. And that’s for 40 people at a time. On top of that, they have never asked anything in return from our group. It has always impressed the heck out of me.
If you read further down the article it states to the effect that most American carriers do short flights in USA whereas the airlines making the list for the most part are long distance carriers (i.e. service more important on long haul vs short haul)
That really doesn’t wash for UAL and AA, who have lots of international & overseas flights. And it doesn’t explain why those two rate so poorly compared to short haul carriers like SWA and Jet Blue. It’s all about attitude. SWA serves nothing, but their employees are friendly and helpful to the last one.
As someone who flew about half a million miles in 5 years, I can tell you UAL & AA don’t come close in their long haul service to the top 20 or so foreign carriers. In fact, I’m hard pressed to think who they’re better than. Maybe Lot or Alitalia.
Plenty of the big US carriers do long hauls. UAL sucks on the Atlantic hauls. Old 767’s ER’s. I sat in a seat where the overhead light would come on every 10minutes. No other seats in the plane and the stewardess would not allow me to unscrew the bulb nor would they compensate me for a night of no sleep. Even UAL’s domestic service sucks. Delta isn’t much better but has better rates lately. NWA is probably my favorite domestic followed by a close second with Continental.
and there doesn’t seem to be a lot we can do about poor service…
we get hammered by airlines to carry bikes, rules seem to be all over the place, no reimbursement most of the time if they break it, TSA people can be as unfriendly as they want, etc…bummer.
With SWA, never had a problem, always friendly, rarely delayed…
Worst has to be Air France though. Even Alitalia and UAL are good compared to Air France.
Greg, sadly, as we all know in the business world, many employers treat customers in a great way, but tread all over their employees. This is nothing new.
But you can be assurred that in the long run, a company that treats their people like crap will not be in the business of offering good customer service, cause after a while, disgruntled, unmotivated employees will start to treat their customers like crap.
When I was in the military, we learned that the art of leadership is to convince the troops that they truly want to do each mission, good and bad. While “orders exist”, they are just that, “orders”. A good leader, converts those “orders” to a personal mission for each person. Part of doing that is to treat them like your own family. The best businesses succeed in the long run by doing so.
Actually, there is something we could do about poor service: pay higher prices. As long as the prices we pay are at or below breakeven for the airlines, we will suffer with poor service. That said, the domestic US airline industry is the most competitive in the worrld and we have the best value for money in the world (As long as safety is not compromised). You and I and our willingness-to-pay determines the service level. Pay more to fly and the airlines could easily offer more service. Southwest limits the services offereing and makes money. Singapore has a lot more service but charges a premium price.
Also, Sing Airlines is a great airline but many of its labor practices would be illegal in the US and Europe. These include no right to strike by the pilot’s union, mandatory retirement age for the female flight attendants (about 35), hiring based on attractiveness, height, etc. (which, I must admit, helps make it very pleasant to fly on SQ).
