Best Airlines in each Continent

[George245]

Hello. For those avid travellers. Do you have any recommendation about which airline is best based on your travels. Tahnk you

 

[ryan]

I always find Virgin the best (from Heathrow - it has the better product). Good food, aircraft and entertainment. Continental were OK - they had metal cutlery in economy, but I hear things have been downgraded now they are becoming United. To be honest, I find the best airline for travelling around Europe to be Ryanair - they fly to virtually the whole of Europe, don't cost too much, and you fly in a brand new aircraft. As long as you play by their rules, you can't complain really!

 

[Aviador]

Best Airlines in each Continent?

Good question because many people in Europe prefer to fly with Middle Eastern airlines these days. That says a lot about the European carriers!

I would say British Airways for Europe (also known as London Airways ), Qutar Airways for the Middle East. Singapore Airlines for the Asia Pacific region. North America, I don't really know, but I've not heard many good things about any of them. South America, again I just don't know because I'm not far flung enough.

 

[User0001]

US airways used to be good for America, but they seem to have let their A330-300's go a little bit. I suppose when they upgrade them, they could be good again.

I personally like VS for the USA (LHR only), as the meals are good, a couple of drink rounds, V-port and for New York, good timings on flights.
MAN-MCO on VS should be good from april, brand new A333, with very very up to date IFE!

Going east, I keep hearing good things about Etihad, and for India, jet airways.

I suppose it all depends on what you like on a flight though. Do you just want to get from A-B with minimal effort, or to be left alone, or to be entertained and fed all the way?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Unless someone travels the world frequently on a varied assortment of airllines I believe it's impossible to answer this sort of question in a meaningful way.

It's certainly possible to get a consensus of other people's opinions from trip report websites from which it seems that airlines such as Singapore Airlines (seems to have been one of the most consistently favourably reported on airlines going back to the 1970s and possibly before that) and Qatar are very well regarded.

I've been using air transport since the 1970s and in that time have only experienced one airline I didn't like and that was the American carrier Northwest Airlines (now part of Delta).

I used the airline several times between Amsterdam and either Minneapolis-St Paul or Detroit - didn't have a lot of choice if I wanted to travel from my UK regional airport (via AMS). I've never come across such a rude and couldn't-care-less set of cabin staff and this was on almost every flight. They code-shared with KLM and in those days (the 1990s) KLM was streets ahead of Northwest from a punter's perspective.

It was a delight on those occasions that KLM was the transatlantic carrier from AMS and not Northwest. In the past decade I've used KLM once or twice on European routes and sad to report their standards have slipped a lot, but so I believe have many other legacy carriers.

I was then a member of the KLM Flying Dutchman frequent flyer loyalty programme and after one flight with Northwest into AMS my wife and I were so annoyed with the cabin staff attitude that we complained at a KLM helpdesk at AMS. The assistant listened and merely said, "Yes, I know" before inviting us to fill in a complaints form. It seemed she was used to fielding complaints about Northwest.

The upshot was that KLM wrote to us and gave us both sufficient additional FD points for a free return flight each between the UK and AMS.