Towards an impasse
As every year, the ranking of the best airlines in the world carried out by the London-based Skytrax organization is closely scrutinized. It must be said that this rating is not disputed by anyone and that it has been refined over time, since it began in 1999, a quarter of a century ago. This is more than enough to ensure its credibility. A few lessons remain to be learned.
First of all, the supremacy of the Gulf airlines, to which we can add Turkish Airlines, whose base in Istanbul is in the same geographical area. Well, this zone, which includes only about twenty regular companies out of the 1200 registered in the world, achieves the performance of placing 3 in the top ten places and 5 in the Top 20. We can also notice the great stability in this ranking since we find the same in 2023. Let us pay tribute to Qatar Airways, Emirates and Turkish Airlines, the latter of which has made tremendous progress in the last 10 years
American airlines, yet the giants of air transport, are conspicuous by their absence. No carrier appears in the top 20 and only 3 emerge in the list of 50, with the first Delta Air Lines in the modest 21st place. It was not until the 100 nominees were nominated that 14 carriers registered in the United States and Canada were found. This proves that just because a company is big doesn’t mean it’s beautiful and attractive. Admittedly, the American domestic market is undoubtedly less demanding than that of other continents, but it is still surprising that the mega carriers of the United States still manage to impose themselves in international competition while their quality of service leaves so much to be desired.
The Asian continent takes the lion’s share of this ranking. It represents half of the top 10 companies and almost as many of the top 50: 24 out of 50. On closer inspection, the carriers of this huge continent have imposed a level of quality much higher than that of other parts of the world, but they are also the ones who will drive the growth of future air transport if we are to believe the huge order book they hold with the two major world manufacturers. For the moment, states do not seem to be very concerned by the search for carbon neutrality, they are rather in the position of using this mode of transport to strengthen their economic growth.
European airlines are gradually regaining ground. It must be said that they had fallen very low under the governance of the famous “cost killers” and “Yield Management”. Gradually we see them return to the places they should never have left. Let’s welcome the arrival of Air France for the second year in a row and Swiss International Airlines in the top 10 airlines. The Europeans managed to place 6 carriers in the Top 20 with the progress of British Airways and Lufthansa. This proves that when Europeans want to make a quality product, they quickly reach the top of the ranking. They had to go down very low before returning to the level they had in the 1970s. We can only encourage them to continue on the same path.
Two continents are still lagging behind. Latin America only appears in the second part of the Top 50 with the 43rd position of LATAM and only 5 carriers are in the top 100 worldwide. There is still much to be done in this area for which air transport is so vital. The same can be said of Africa, which only places Ethiopian Airlines in the top 50 carriers in 36th place and only 7 companies in the top 100, including Royal Air Maroc in 55th place.
We can criticize this type of ranking at will, which necessarily retains a certain subjectivity even if it is built on a large number of criteria. Nevertheless, it is of great interest not only to high-rated companies or those that are moving up the list, but also to customers for whom it remains a criterion of choice, even if it is not the only one. And then it encourages carriers to continue their efforts to improve and, if only for that, the Skytrax ranking is very useful to air transport.
