Originally Posted by
billdokes
Interesting what happens when you expand the field a bit...19th overall...
The World Top 20 Airlines In 2025
1. Qatar Airways
2. Singapore Airlines
3. Cathay Pacific
4. Emirates
5. ANA All Nippon Airways
6. Turkish Airlines
7. Korean Air
8. Air France
9. Japan Airlines
10. Hainan Airlines
11. Swiss Int’l Air Lines
12. EVA Air
13. British Airways
14. Qantas Airways
15. Lufthansa
16. Virgin Atlantic
17. Saudi Arabian Airlines
18. STARLUX Airlines
19. Air Canada
20. Iberia
Having flown 16/20 of these and 13/20 in J, I don’t think this ranking is too far from reality. The top 5 are definitely very accurate.
I suppose this is meant to be comprehensive and not just based on J, otherwise I might reorder some of them slightly (e.g., Turkish has great soft product but it’s a gamble whether you’ll be in 1-2-1 vs 2-3-2, similar with Lufthansa’s 2-2-2 or BA’s yin-yang).
But, at the end of the day, it’s really like splitting hairs to rank all of these airlines strictly in order because there are so many different variables. There were a couple airlines that sprung to mind as missing, but I checked the full ranking and they’re all 21-30. Because of this, I tend to think of an airline’s relative quality more as a S/A/B/C/D tier instead of a ranking.