KLouis

Having nothing better to do at 3:30 am (I know, I know) I started browsing through different sites that I would, usually, not visit. One of them was Skytrax. I was amazed to see that A3 was listed as a 3-star airline while, in contrast, Edelweiss and AC were listed as a 4-star one. The amazement was not due to my own evaluation of them (I haven't flown much on AC and only once on WK) but on the passengers' reports in the Skytrax site: AC got an average grade of 5/10 while A3 an average of 8/10. Edelweiss' overall evaluation was based on 0 (zero) reports (at least, none is shown); Moreover, the non-existent Edelweiss business class lounge got a five star grade!!!! Looking at more details, you had the feeling that whoever was compiling the data had simply not flown him/herself (nothing amazing about that) but grades were simply random (e.g. 3-star for cleanliness of A3 planes, different grades for business vs. economy check-in in ATH, etc.).

Similar discrepancies are seen if one looks at more airlines or, even worse, airport evaluations based on fewer than 100 reviews.

Makes me wonder how many people look at those pages and, most importantly, why on earth they do so?

PS Just realized that the thread's title is confusing, as people will think this is about award tickets; apologies!

DELLAS

Take these ''Awards'' with a pinch of salt. Some are well earned while others are what we would call influenced by the ''Fakelaki'' Skytrax is well known for it !

jbfield

The longer they're not at the top, the longer they keep working hard to get there...don't let them slip into complacency.

Swanhunter

A3 clearly have the good sense not to be spend any money with Skytrax!

Jma12

I usually base my evaluation on customer's rating rather than skytrax' rating. And yes, AC deserves 6/10 at best, I flew them many times, and rouge is the worst and they are not even link to the AC rating on Skytrax.

keitherson

Those ratings mean nothing. Air Koryo is the only 1-star rated airline on Skytrax, and their service and food is better than many carriers.

http://samchui.com/2016/09/30/review...ing-pyongyang/

ob7777777

Fascinating review - looking at the pictures I have to wonder why all these Western-looking people are flying to Pyongyang??

NWIFlyer

A3 has recently come second in the Business Traveller Awards for "Best Shorthaul Airline". Now, this is a remarkable achievement because the winner was BA, and they beat LX and U2.

https://www.businesstraveller.com/aw...r-awards-2016/

BT is a UK-based magazine, so inevitably BA will win more votes - it's pretty much a given that they will win in multiple categories with their shorthaul network out of London. LX and U2 carry far, far more passengers than A3. No award system is perfect, far from it, but if you analyse A3's results across many award categories and try to apply some intelligence to them, they come out looking consistently excellent. With BA seemingly attempting to trash their shorthaul network with the removal of all free catering in Y, there's every chance A3 will win next year depending on how big the current gap is.

irishguy28

Well - North Koreans are not allowed to travel.

And, as stated, the author of that trip report was tavelling as part of an international group of aviation enthusiasts going to visit the Wonsan Air Festival.

ob7777777

Aha good point...must learn to read things more closely...

PVDtoDEL

I was on that flight.. There were 150+ westerners, including many tourists going to Wonsan.

Since it's very unusual for North Koreans to travel, most flights to FNJ are filled with foreigners - primarily Russian and Chinese, but also many westerners.

NWIFlyer

We seem to have some significant thread drift here. Could we return to the thread topic of A3's performance in awards, please?

/mod