Asiana: 2010 Skytrax Airline of the Year

The annual Skytrax awards were announced yesterday. Some highlights:

AIRLINE OF THE YEAR: Asiana
BEST TRANSATLANTIC AIRLINE: Virgin Atlantic
BEST EUROPEAN AIRLINE: Lufthansa
BEST AMERICAN AIRLINE: Virgin America
MOST IMPROVED AIRLINE: Garuda

I flew Asiana (OZ) LAX-SEL-HKG and PVG-SEL-LAX last October and found their inflight service the best I've ever experienced. Personally, I've found BA to have better Transatlantic service than VS but then again I'm not a Hollywood celebrity. I haven't flown LH in years but I'm glad to hear they have such a good reputation. VX is definitely the best airline in the USA bar none. I've never flown GA but I hope this represents the beginning of an improvement in Indonesian aviation.

I hate to be mean but the only way GA could go was up. At one time everything about them was poor from punctuality to service and what frightened me most was the condition of the aircraft. Well done Garuda.

I like you Mabel have always found BA to have the edge on VS but you know recently the BA cabin crew attitude has been poor and I guess it reflects in the decision.

To the best of my knowledge, throughout the history of SkyTrax's Annual Best Airline competition, no carrier in any category has won an award AND suffered industrial dispute in the same yr. Labor issues might not hv direct connection to the rating of BA in SkyTrax's scoring system but the media will hv a field day if BA won an award AND appeared on strike-related news headlines.....SkyTrax's reputation<Far fm perfect but is the best among a bunch of other well-known rating agencies/bodies IMHO> may be @ stake here....

I always believed it's just a matter of time OZ<Asiana> will bag SkyTrax's AIRLINE OF THE YEAR award. It has been right up there on the 5Stars airline list for yrs<Only 6carriers achieved this highest rating every yr>. To me, the most striking aspect of OZ is the way it treats Y pax - a model for all airlines, worldwide to aim for re Y services. Best of all, OZ has been a well-hidden secret in the industry and only those lucky few who hv flown with OZ knew<Like Mabel and myself>. That kept OZ fares extremely reasonable and easy to book.....until now. I was trying to book OZ again for an upcoming trip to LAX but all flights are full and fares hv creeped up a bit<Still very competitive relative to other 3/4Stars airlines, let alone the 5Stars ones>....the secret is definitelyout....may be I should hv kept my mouth shutted re OZ...just kidding.

U guys probably knew I'm gonna say this: GA<Garuda> winning the MOST IMPROVED AIRLINE award is unsurprising.
Its current Int'l ops resemble nothing of the old GA and I hv flown the old GA quite a few times in the early 2000s. If U remove the brandings/logos/liveries/GA code, this might as well be a recently created brand new carrier. Used to be a bottom-feeder<As captain bill said, GA simply could not go any further down> among Asian carriers in terms of service, product and safety, I can confidently say today's GA inflight product+service hv leap frogged the much much bigger and more well-known TG and MH<Though it's true that both Thai and Malaysia hv been suffering massive losses and an utter lack of key strategic direction in the past few yrs> while safety practices hv met or exceeded audit stds as set out by Int'l cert bodies. This is a remarkable transformation no matter which way U look @ it. The primary reason for such a dramatic turnaround is a new, professional & competent top mgmt team which replaced the old, clueless, quasi-gov't burecrats @ the GA helm a few yrs ago.

I'm afraid if captain bill has a chance to see a GA Int'l aircraft in the nex couple of yrs<GA is returning to AMS this yr and other key EU cities fm 2011 with 332s/77Ws>, he will be frightened again about the condition of the aircraft - a frighteningly advanced and fresh airframe/cabin.