Lounges
Best overall: NZ for generally high quality lounges complete with decent food & wine (important for a constantly hungry alcoholic like myself), with honorable mention to SQ for usually having a decent range of food (and good ice cream)
Best individual lounges: OZ and SQ in ICN, NZ in SYD, NZ in WLG (my fave domestic lounge)
Worst overall: UA (even the US lounges I've seen are better)
Loyalty program: Horses for courses really. I like AC for easy status earning and fairly well priced awards, UA is strong overall, NZ is good for its innovative redemption policy of any seat, any flight but premium awards are pricey.
Y / J / F cabins incl. seating
Best Y seats: NZs 744s by a mile. UA Y+ also gets honorable mention (though the seats themselves are pretty basic and not very comfortable), plus AC's A340 seats and OZ's 777s are not bad either.
Worst Y seats: UA Y-, SQ 744
Best J seats: I've never really been wowed by any long haul J seats, and I've not tried the spacebed yet. UA probably wins overall, AC for space, SK for funky cabin design (incl bathrooms!). NZ's new J suites look fabulous, though.
Worst J seats: TG's old ones, any intra-Europe J.
Best/worst F seats: I've only ever tried TG, woe is me. Old but very comfy.
Food / drink
Best: NZ, not least for the decent wines. SQ I find a bit disappointing. OZ probably win for quantity, in Y at least. SK business class food/wine was impressive, Y was pretty basic. TG endeared themselves to me by offering Dom Perignon in F, but breakfast service wasn't the best. AC's vodka based cocktails in Exec First are also worthy of a mention.
Worst: In Y, UA are usually OK but sometimes truly terrible, ditto AC, but for J catering UA is a disgrace whereas AC is quite good. Wines on both are woeful. Meanwhile on US I've never been served any food at all! LH win prize for most boring shorthaul food - mit ham or kase, sir?
Customer service
Best: a tie between NZ and OZ - both very good despite very different styles. NH is very very close behind.
Most overrated: SQ - they seem to lack warmth, individuality or initiative, though they are certainly efficient.
Worst: UA on a bad day
Baggage handling
Best: SQ
Worst: US
Routes on own metal
Best: LH, SQ, honorable mention to UA
Worst: BD, for constant and illogical changes
In-flight entertainment / communications
Best: An easy win for SQ, though NH's AVOD equipped system is good too. I'm curious to see NZ's new AVOD system coming out in a few months.
Worst: TG
I'm adding some awards of my own...
the inflight magazine
Best: SK - genuinely worth reading, though occasional slight lapses into 'English as a second language'
Worst: OZ - yaaaaaaaawn
Frequent flyer card design
Best: NZ - very funky. Honorable mention to BD.
Worst: AC's elite design 2003, UA's for being boring
Uniforms
Best: SQ - I must admit, they are gorgeous.
Worst: SK shorthaul - the poor women have to wear grey sacks!
Aircraft livery
Best: BD by miles. I quite like US as well, and am fond of NZ's (probably only because of moments seeing it in foreign airports and being reminded of home). SK and LH are both very plain but quite smart, especially on their larger a/c.
Middle of the road: TG, SQ, UA (old & new)
Worst: OZ is pretty bad, OS is probably the dullest, new AC livery is the tackiest (I quite like the old one, though, especially on an A340).
Last edited by mad_atta; Mar 18, 2005 at 9:51 pm