World’s Best Airlines Were Just Announced and Not One US Carrier Made the List

With these routes, you have travelers that are less penny-pinching cost conscious, with lots of business travelers and wealthy travelers that can pay more for better service. Plus, many of these airlines (like Qatar) have relatively cheap labor costs.

With American carriers, I'd assume the lions share of their traffic is domestic, where you have a family traveling to grandma and grandpa's house, who'll get a ticket for 5 dollars cheaper even if it means you have to pay extra to use the bathroom. And since many of these flights are in the 2-4 hour range, a lot of travelers feel like they'll "suck up the pain" for a discount if the flight is that short, vs. someone on a 12 hour transatlantic flight.

This isn't just a US issue - think of the European carriers who primarily fly within Europe. Nobody has great love for Ryanair, besides the fact that it's so damn cheap.

I got super lucky once and got to fly first class on points to east Asia via Asiana and ANA and holy shit the level of service is just out of this world. You get personal service from airport to airport, including an employee (or sometimes even more than one) escorting you from lounge to gate. The catering was among the best food I've ever had, and they turn down your seat and give you pajamas. In retrospect I'm especially impressed because I was a dumb twenty-something year old with no business being in a first class cabin.

No kidding, even the worst Airlines I’ve flown (Air France and now-defunct Deccan Airways of India) do not hold a candle to the condescending staff and torturing seats.

Delta is probably the best in the US. But those at the top of that list are in a whole different league of air travel, even in economy.

Tesla FSD has made single day trips into nothing, and I recently bought an RV with starlink which makes major cross country trips obviously a better choice (to me) than airlines.

It’s not just the airlines themselves. It’s the airports. Everything feels just maximally engineered to extract the most money from me for the least cost. The food is terrible and expensive. The buildings are all neglected, government designed by committees monstrosities. There is no mind paid whatsoever to efficiency.

And it’s expensive! We were recenty flying and our two checked bags were over weight by about 5 lbs each. This cost is an extra $100 EACH bag. Insane. On a connecting flight we paid like $200 just to have a quick 45 minutes to sit down and change our baby, and have some amount of privacy and ability to lay down. (It was a “minute suite” which costs something like $100/hr. We booked two hours and were only able to use about 45 mins due to the size of the airport)

I hate it. Flying is the absolute worst experience and I hope to never do it again except for private flights.

Many of these other airlines are newer and serve a smaller amount of their population. They are still seen as luxury. The other side of this high-quality coin is that they are not accessible the same way north American flights are to north American customers.

Just like the first Tesla was a roadster for the rich that was used to start a company and fund expansion and cheapness, these airlines have started at the top-end for profit and expansion. But they do not serve everyone.

Airlines in the US used to be very classy. It became more profitable to serve broader, cheaper service.

What this means really is that unless the airlines are outliers for their particular region, they're actually representative of a gap that still has a ways to close.

I don't fly an enormous amount (6-10 long haul flights a year) but it's always interesting the things these lists go for. American and BA might not be the most comfortable experience, they might lose your baggage from time-to-time and their lounges can be a bit dated but when the chips are down boy do they have the best captains and crew.

Obviously when flying one hopes that things won't go wrong but if they do I'd rather be flying BA or American over Qatar thank you very much.

[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-australi...

US carriers seem to be hyperfocused on going as low as they could possibly go without having to resort to ultra-low-cost-carrier schemes of charging for literally everything. (They're almost there, though.)

There is a lot of the world that isn't America...

Plenty of other countries not on the list too, what's it matter that an american airline is not specifically on the best list? You would expect due to the law of averages, there are a lot of things that an american version of wouldn't make the top, the same for any country, what significance does it have?

Also like air New Zealand and China Airlines (after I found out it’s Taiwan not China owned, never flew on it prior to finding that out)