fuseli

According to the Guardian Travel Awards 2013:

Best business-class airline

Winner Singapore Airlines
Second BMI/FlyBMI
Third Qatar Airways
Fourth Emirates
Fifth Etihad

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/20...ers?CMP=twt_fd

wyvern

Classic

EDIflyer

Wow - great up-to-date coverage there, Guardian!!

layz

Disappointed GNER did not make it in the best rail category.

I've heard good things about Dan Air too, not sure what happened to them.

wyvern

From the customer's point of view, GNER arguably deserved to win best rail category

It was a shame they bid too high to keep the franchise - but I think the government of the day are to blame for the policy that fostered that.

GNER were not doing a bad job of running the trains - it is perhaps government interference in UK railways which is the root of the problems.

While National Express and East Coast have tried with the service, the catering is not up to the standards GNER set, sadly - I miss GNER's restaurant car, which offered a proper full service experience, and I miss GNER's wine list which was way above what other train companies offer.

layz

Totally agree with GNER, they were the best train operator by far, we still have some legacy of that. East Coast managed stations (as opposed to Network Rail managed main stations like Kings Cross) don't have those annoying automated announcements that nearly every other station has.

Restaurants made the rail journey a pleasure plus things like a good looking livery and well maintained stations added to that.

Back in 2002 GNER's customer relations team helped me organise a nice surprise for my parents major anniversary as they were travelling that day. I wanted to treat them to first class, so told them not to book their tickets, but they went ahead anyway and booked them. So I took a sneak look at their seat numbers and arranged with GNER to present them with an upgrade and a bottle of wine (they don't like champagne). They organised it perfectly, they were moved into First Class even before departure.

I can't see any other train operator doing that. Unfortunately the way the franchise systems are run there's no room to offer a true quality service.

It's also worth mentioning it was GNER that commissioned Atos to create the new booking engine that's now been adopted by many other rail companies. This was because GNER had many complaints about thetrainline based booking system all train companies used and they wanted something better.

East Coast is still the best out there, but is a shadow of what GNER was. I can't see another GNER emerging on the UK rail network so I think it's best East Cost stays nationalised. It's making a profit and is doing a good job at having a product that's competitive against airlines and driving. It's not acting complacent as some people accuse nationalised companies of doing.

Has anything changed to stop another overbidder like NXEC from getting the ECML franchise?