San Gottardo

Preface: this post is about Skytrax rankings. If in any case you dismiss them for the right or wrong reasons, stop reading now.

Air France has won an award for "Most improved airline" in the 2015 World Airline rankings. Obviously "improved" can mean anything, it might have gone from "utter rubbish" to "quite terrible", but AF seems to have made quite a leap to make it to first place.

This is also in line with their overall ranking as the world's #15, just one place behind the Lufthansa/Austria/Swiss trio who hold the European top spots (I consider TK as ME4 rather than Euro because it despite its hub being located in Europe its location hardly attracts any intra-Euro traffic).

Another first prize was won for "Best First Class Lounge Dining".

All in all they get a couple of other top 10 rankings (e.g.IFE, First Class product, Premium Economy) but are absent in other important categories (Business Class, Economy Class)

There are hardly any surprises in the global rankings. Far Eastern carriers and the ME4 make up the top 9, then it's Qantas, then LH/OS/LX (where both LH and LX have slipped) - and then Air France. British Airways is down at #20, KLM at #28, Ibera on #56, SAS on #57, we-are-sorry-we-lost-them Alitalia on #74. So Air France does rather well compared to the other two big powerhouses BA/IAG and LH Group.

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Personal comments: OK, this is Skytrax. Some rankings I find surprising , but that is of course driven by personal taste and preferences, plus the fact that status on one airline can lead to a vastly better experience than on another airline which may not be that different for other people. And many airines I just don't know.

On Air France: two things. First, I am happy to see them getting better ratings. Because like so many others on this forum I was for many years in a situation "I would like to like them, but they're just too crappy for that". But for many of us AF is such a prominent part of our life as frequent travelers that we have a weak spot for the company. I am also happy because I just hope that the improved ratings will encourage them to do even better, which means investing into speedier cabin re-fit and addressing the things that still aren't all that great.

Second, I think the good ratings are deserved only for those parts of the offering that have actually been upgraded/improved. For instance, the new cabins (especially LH) are great, and so is their digital offering. Food has improved as well, and so has the transfer experience at CDG. But there are still major deficiencies, especially the fact that too many planes still fly around with the old cabins which frankly do not justify a world-wide #15 spot. Lounges other than Premiere are still poor. So personally I think if I take only the best of AF then the move to the top 20 is justified. Taking a cross-section of what reality looks like at AF these days - i.e. including all the old stuff - I wouldn't say it is. And whilst I do not look at precise rankings (=I don't make a huge difference whether an airline is #12 or #16), it's the "direction" that counts. And there the new AF should indeed by in the company of LH, LX, OS and ahead of BA. I also believe that LH has slipped and BA's excellence has worn off.

And I still think that the coolest airline to fly with Virgin America Not the best food (this is America...), not the most comfortable seats (AA's new trans-Con product is much better), hardly any lounges... but the entire concept is just "cool to fly with". But that is really just a reflection of taste

Andy49

I think that AF food and presentation has improved in the last year but I haven't noticed anything else. I have a few AF flights booked over the next 10 months, 1 Qatar but my favourite at the moment is China Airlines (all J class). Thanks for the read San Gottardo

Goldorak

I think this well deserved for AF after all the work done, like for CDG last year who was also ranked by Skytrack as the most improved airport. Let's hope that now those stupid SNPL pilots will not ruin everything. As San Gottardo said, the new cabins should be installed more rapidly, but we already discussed a lot about this in other threads and we know it won't be the case unfortunately. At least, no additional delays.
And I can't wait to have another fine dining experience in the P lounge in CDG

brunos

All these rankings that the airlines sponsor one way or the other are questionable. Especially when you put in the same ranking semi-LCCs like Vuelling, and ME3 (or 4) or AF.

But it seems that AF is indeed trying to improve especially longhaul J/P, and I am happy for them and hope that it will encourage AF to make it widespread (work on A380/330)

shuigao

I don't have much experience in premium classes but I flew AF's new biz seat SIN-CDG (and back) last week. I thought the seat was sublime. Food less so, and service was a bit crappy. But for the ranking of #15 ... seems fair to my limited experience.

I mean, if not #15 then where? #20+'s together with Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia? Because I do have LOTS of experience on these two airlines and they are crap.

FT TR link (for anyone interested): http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...cdg-af259.html

brunos

Ranking an airline is always a tough endeavor. A year ago, the new F and J seats were not available. There is no doubt that it helps the improved ranking. Many airlines have a mix of old and new seats; even QR still has some antique A340 and 330. These are clearly not used in the rankings.

orbitmic

As I mentioned in another forum, I am taking those rankings with a few kilos of salt! Apart from sponsoring mentioned above, I think that prejudice and notoriety bias the results frequently.

For instance, I find I find the excellent ratings of LH quite ridiculous and at odds with my own experience of them overall. I also consider it hilarious that JL does not feature in the top 10 of best F onboard food. Conversely, having BA in the top 10 of best J lounges is a mystery to me as GC is frankly nothing to write home about compared to a number of competitors that I can think of. For instance, I would consider NZ lounges far superior. And while I love CX, their J catering is frankly not their strong point and putting it above the likes of EY and GA is frankly strange, while at the same time, I am quite astonished that AZ is not even at all in that category (arguably, even IB should rate above CX on that front). As for J lounge dining, again, I nearly choked when seeing BA on that list. And amenities? I thought SQ (which is ranked 7th) does not give any amenity kit at all in J? And why exactly is AF no4 for W catering whilst AZ which has vastly better W menus is not listed? In fact, AF is among the airlines which really treat W meals as Y with slight variation. Those are just examples too...

San Gottardo

I fully agree with you and so will most others that the Skytrax approch and methodolgy has some inherent flaws.

There is no proof of bribery by the airlines and we might be a little careful to assume bribery every competition where Qatar comes out on top (after all their airline is fairly decent and their hub is fairly decent now as well). But then there is no proof of the opposite either as Skytrax doesn't give full transparency about the input data and their mathematics behind.

The point you are making about comparing (semi)LCCs with ME or AF: yes and no. If someone uses those ranking to determine which airline is "better" by just looking at the overall rankings, then that will not be very meaningful. Easyjet may be ahead of Alitalia, but to get you from Tokyo to Milan that isn't a very helpful insight.

But: if one took the Skytrax rankings for what they actually are and not for what they market themselves to be then they do tell a story.

Here is what I mean: a proper comparative ranking can only be established if all competitors are assessed by the same assessors, according to the same criteria, with all assessors having identical expectations and no personal bias.

However, this is not how Skytrax works. "Assessors" are customers of the airlines, but none of them has tested every airline and they give their feedback and grades according to their own tastes, expectations and to however (many or few) they can compare to. So what the rankings tell us is *not* which airline is a "better airline" but which airline does better in getting a lot of positive feedback from those people who have bothered giving feedback on it. An airline high up in the rankins has more customers ready to say that they are happy, but is not necessarily a better airline. Just like McDonald's may have a higher proportion of happy customers than La Tour d'Argent.


Obviously basing the rankings on input of different people with very very different tastes/expectations/benchmarks is highly problematic. Inputs are

• subjective
• biased towards certain things: preference for home country airlines, no liking of airlines from countries with less-than-socialist-European-labour-laws, etc.
• reflecting different priorities: someone who isn't too fussy about food might give a better grade to an airline's food than someone who is, some care more about a selection of "artsy" movies than others who are impressed by having 850 braindead action movies shown on a screen as large as a coffee table, some may be impressed by being served their lounge food a-la-carte at their table whereas others prefer a faster buffet solution, etc.
• reflecting expectations driven by habits: Asians would give terrible grades to US service attitude, US customers would give terrible grades to European shorthaul business class seats, etc
• expectations driven by price paid or by promises made by airines: some would get much more happiness out of flying easyjet than out of flying AF on the same route because it's a very convenient and price-attractive alternative to a lacklustre and expensive flight with Air France. Does that make easyjet a "better airline" or just one that gets good grades because it meets expectations better?
• expectations that are over-met compared to the past: I guess that is where lots of the positive momentum for AF comes from: we were used to crap and now it's something good, and some people are so amazed by those changes that they might inflate grades
• repeating public beliefs: would EK get such high grades in a blind tasting as well or is a lot of their good grading based on the fact that people feel that they are traveling with a supposedly superb airline and consequently give better feedback
• and so on...

A bit like Zagat: especially for restaurants in the US comparing the ratings are pointless. A diner joint can have 26 points for service and a three star restaurant only 24. Does that mean that the diner has better service? It's not the same customers, so while Bob and Brenda may give outstanding feedback on the diner because they always get a refill on their Dr. Pepper, a gourmet may give only mediocre feedback because the sommelier decanted the Romanee Conti too hastily. Which one is the better restaurant? Similar issue with TripAdvisor.

Hence, I don't look at this as which airline is a better quality airline than another. I look at this as which airline has succeeded in getting better feedback from those that use it. Presenting this as the ultimate comparative ranking of which airline is better is not justified.


I think they have said that they'll do something on the A380, and for sure will also do the A330 after those 777s that are due to be modified have been done. A340s will not get refitted..

All very true, but in my mind not how the rankings should be looked at, as explained above. Maybe you find CX J food not great after you have sampled 40 other airlines and you can really compare and with a "trained mind" can distinguish between different elements of an offering. But maybe CX has plenty of customers that i) don't expect more so they find the food great ii) mostly fly CX because they've been told it's a great airline and are proud about going with what supposedly is a great airline, and give their rankings accordingly across all categories, etc.

I am certain that if the method was one where travelers where asked different questions ("Which airline would you fly on Europe-Far East, which one on North America-Far East, etc - rank them by preference, or give percentages to split your votes" - just an example, and insufficient and social scientists might point out the flaws in this method) the results would be different as well.

And of course the other filter that would need to be applied is old vs. new products. Air France is just one example where the new product is substantially better than the previous generation. Same for LH, who still have old Business seats flying around and they are dreadful (and the new ones are not as good as AF), and so is Qatar, and EK's entire 777 fleet has angled flat seats in Business, and so on.

orbitmic

Yes I agree with your view. To be honest, I could think of ways of making far more robust league tables but I don't expect the Skytrax of this world to go there. In fairness I also think that my kilo of salt notwithstanding, the rankings that this provide are actually far less random than many others. One place where they tend to work quite well is in comparing the standing of a given airline in different categories which shows where its customers feel that it is doing well or could improve.

San Gottardo

Yep, agree.

The biggest flaw of Skytrax is to market its survey as a league table that shows which airline is the "best airline". It's something else. That something also has its merits, but certainly not the ones the survey claims to produce.

Still, if AF will do as much in increasing its efforts as it will do in bragging about its "success" then that is a good thing for many of us. First signs are promising, there are just too few of them (and the management, as much as I find them incompetent and misled on the overall group strategy, have my sympathy to actually get something done despite pilots that worry about FFP benefits and the French government that doesn't even hide its agenda to run this like a state-owned company).

brunos

Fully agreed.

I don't mind management bragging if this survey encourage them to continue improving their longhaul premium products. Given their deteriorating financial situation, they must be thinking twice about their plan to upgrade the A380/330 in a few years.

San Gottardo

Maybe their pilots are against it? Afraid that there will be more customers willing to pay and thus taking away seats that would otherwise have gone to staff spouses, friends, cousins, and other "significant others".

brunos

The pilots have been upset by the scheduled drastic reduction in F seat numbers on the 777s ( another gossip from the Air Show). If AF were to decide to remove F from the ten A380s, they would probably strike.

PS: the last sentence is a joking statement.

San Gottardo

Seriously?? And I thought I was joking...

These pilots... I get two know two AF pilots better and better, each one of them has a kid in one of my two kids' classes in school respectively. First they love me because I am an airline enthusiast and have a lot of respect for the piloting profession (which I truly do, because even if I don't have a full grasp of the job I am aware of the requirements and complexity of the job). But they start getting a little skeptical when we move from what goes on in the cockpit to airline management because I tell them many things that they don't like to hear, such as "HOP is a stillborn idiocy, it will not succeed", or "Transavia is the group's best chance to get a share of the LCC market, but not the way that's it's done now. Forget 'contrat unique', your cost structure is too high and your productivity too low. Do it the Vueling way. Cheap labour and autonomous management, and even FFP miles for Iberia customers. And stop trying to think that you can run the main AF brand like an LCC and a premium carrier at the same time", or "Stop whining about the ME3. You mucked it up yourselves. Sure QR and EY are subsidised by their governments, so what? Happens in all kinds of industries in the globalised world. If you hadn't pi**ed off so many customers at the same time they were riding a charme attack the gap wouldn't be that big today". They tell me that I sound more credible and respectful than "la direction" against whom they have a sort of "us vs. them" (almost class warfare) attitude, accusing them of lack of strategy and no respect for pilots. But still it goes against their DNA.

orbitmic

PS: to go back to the original topic of the thread (and notwithstanding the fact that I have never used Azerbaidjan Airlines) while I do think that AF has improved, to me, I would have most likely given the award to an airline like Garuda which has gone from horrid to excellent in so very little time. A few others come to mind too.