Originally Posted by
San Gottardo
Depends what matters to you.
Seats:
1. EK on A380 or Air France 777 with new cabins or CX
Very close 2. Delta
Food:
1. Air France
2. Cathay
Distant 3. Emirates
Clear 4. Delta
"Service protocol", service, FAs
Cathay has top professional, very reactive and attentionate staff and service. But "Asian" in a way that they are a little cold and distant, looking up to passengers. Great
Air France has extremely classy, lovely, warm and engaging FAs - usually. But they have some inconsistency, and you may get an FA that hates the whole concept of customer service and may look miserable throughout the flight. Slightly less reactive than others, but things have improved a lot. Still among the four this is "the class act"
Emirates is usually overrated. In a way they are like trained service machines, I find them more stressed than others and less natural. Often not reactive at all.
Delta: Jurassic park. The concept of "class act" is completely foreign to them,in general they don't take a lot of pride in their job.
All in all Cathay is great as always, Air France is making a very successful comeback (just avoid the old cabins) and generally under-rated whilst Emirates is over-rated. Delta is better than its reputation, but still is and remains a U.S. major, hence it's not bad but surely not great either.
I hope that helps
Thanks everyone.
I would say comfort is my primary driver. i could care a lot less about the quality of the food (nothing tastes that great to me in the air), but i do care about the service. My last few TATL on DL have been just fine. I find the seat a little narrow when trying to sleep, but not that bad.
Narrowing down, the SIN-MUC, looks like its EK on two A380's or AF on the new J through CDG. The flight times are similar enough, while the AF one is slightly better. I may take EK just to try it out and b/c I am less of a fan of having a domestic flight after a long-haul (CDG-MUC).
I'll likely try the new AF J going MUC-PVG though.
The SG non-stop means leaving before i would like to (my target date appears to be sold out), and i don't think LH flights that route.
The last hole is the transpac flights, DL is more expensive than CX (for SFO-SIN), but CX is two stop (positioning flight to YVR, LAX, or SFO). Would like to try CX, but not sure if giving up that many MQM's, RDM's, and an extra stop makes sense even if CX is a bit cheaper.