Originally Posted by AC*SE

There's a huge element of apples and oranges in these kinds of lists.

Even when they try to separate out low-cost and leisure carriers you're still left with a lot of variability.

US carriers have vast domestic networks that provide a fundamentally different product than their long haul products; European carriers have significant short-haul operations that compete with both Ryanair and rail.

The big Asian carriers, on the other hand are much more aligned to their long-haul operations. SQ and CX both rely on MI and KA, respectively (even with the regional variations of their respective business classes). None of the European carriers really have the same kind of brand separation.

Among the ME3, QR and EY have different regional products which EK does not. How do you compare the experience of a J passenger VCE-DOH on a QR 320 vs. VCE-DXB on an EK 777?

The other element is one of expectations. FR has set itself such a low bar of expectations, that it really has very little challenge exceeding them (though they certainly are capable of failing at that). Given the Skytrax methodology, the airline that beats low expectations is always going to rate higher than the one that fails to meet high expectations, if if the latter one provides an objectively equivalent service.

Don't get me wrong. BA is backsliding on many, many fronts, and the drop in its overall rating is clearly reflective of this. But the relative positions of BA vs. QR vs. AK in an internet poll is somewhat meaningless.