I second that.

Well, it has no loos, ok, but compared to the public areas in CAI it is the best you can get there - at least not as bad as I had expected from all the horror stories floating around here. And the two servers at the bar really have a hard job :p :D

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).

Another thing--I have always liked their idea of colour-coding the rank structure; you can see at a glance who is who, without having to look closely at the name tag.

cheers,

Henry

Now there's a fun list :D ^ . Well done, mad_atta. My additions to your nominations:

I also like the redesigned SQ cards; the non-PPS ones were horrid before (though not blindingly ugly like AC's new batch of elite cards). The BD cards have grown on me since I first saw them. I like them now.

True for SQ female uniforms, I think false for the male uniforms. The powder-blue blazers never cease to leave me aghast (and embarrassed for the lower-rung male FAs).

I'd add the new TG livery (posted in the TG forum) to the worst list. Yuck.

One more category: best catalogue. My vote goes to LH (although SQ is a very close second, as shown by healthy additions to my KF account after my trips to Asia).

Let me get this straight: you're complaining that you didn't get Champagne for breakfast? ;)

Yes, agree. I also find it embarrassing as they might think I'm looking at something other than their name tag. Of course, I would never do that. ;)

Au contraire, copious quantities of the aforesaid Dom were indeed consumed on our breakfast flight. It was just the food (after all, we needed something to soak up the champagne) that was disappointing.

jjpb3, you're right about the male SQ uniforms, they are pretty foul. IIRC the TG ones aren't much better...?

Worst: TAP Portugal Victoria FFP redemption

LH FRA-CPT-FRA in F for 300000 miles. No kidding, play around with their spend calculator.

http://www.tapvictoria.com/FFP/CDA/t...1_0_1_,00.html

Best FAs: Austrian and Lauda Air have/had some very good looking young ladies, sometimes even in jeans that were probably rather uncomfortably tight ;)

Haven't had a chance to try out TG. Even while I was a mere *S, SQ's service level, tier bonus and multiflight schedule to MNL locked me in pretty tightly. ;) I hope the same management who chose the plane livery don't try to re-design the cabin crew's outfits! :p