Which are the world’s biggest, best and most profitable airlines?
This question, often asked, depends on how airlines are measured. Indicators include fleet size, RPKs (revenue passenger kilometers – an RPK is created every time a paying passenger is flown one kilometre) and total number of passengers carried. RPKs combine frequency of flights, customer volume and distances flown.
Profitability may be easier to gauge. According to latest data from Air Transport World’s ‘World Airline Report’, the top 10 airlines in terms of annual net profit are:
1. Qantas
2. Lufthansa
3. Turkish Airlines
4. Singapore Airlines
5. LAN (Chile, Peru, Ecuador)
6. Emirates
7. Aeroflot
8. Southwest Airlines
9. Air New Zealand
10. COPA (Panama)
The 20 biggest airlines in the world, ranked by RPKs by the same source and excluding regional subsidiaries are:
1. The new United (the pending merger between United and Continental)
2. Delta Air Lines
3. American Airlines
4. Air France/KLM (counted together because of ownership, though they operate separately)
5. Lufthansa
6. Southwest Airlines
7. British Airways
8. Emirates
9. US Airways
10. Cathay Pacific
11. Singapore Airlines
12. Japan Airlines (JAL)
13. Qantas
14. China Southern
15. Air Canada
16. Air China
17. All Nippon Airways (ANA)
18. THAI Airways
19. Ryanair
20. Korean Air
As for measuring quality, the world authority is generally considered to be SkyTrax, an independent British-based organisation that ranks carriers and airports after exhaustive scrutiny. It ranks airlines from five stars to one star.
Five-star carriers at the moment, the cream of the world’s skies according to SkyTrax, are: Asiana, Cathay Pacific, Kingfisher Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines.
Four star carriers are: Hainan Airlines, Japan Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Korean Air, Lufthansa, Porter Airlines (a Canadian carrier), Qantas Airways, Silk Air, South African Airways, Swiss International Air Lines, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Blue.
SkyTrax lists the bulk of the world’s carriers (including virtually all US airlines) as three-star, which it defines as denoting a satisfactory standard of core product across most travel categories – “but reflects poor or less-consistent standards of staff service/product quality in selected onboard or airport features”.
Continuing on down, two-star airlines include the likes of Air Malawi, Air Slovakia, Biman Bangladesh, Bulgaria Air and Cubana Airlines. JetStar Pacific, bmibaby and Ryanair sit uneasily in this category, among other two-star carriers like Ghana International, Macedonian Airlines, Nepal Airlines, Siberia Airlines, Sudan Airways, Tajikistan Airlines and Yemenia Yemen Airways.
Finally, one-star. Air Koryo of North Korea is the only contender. This state-owned national flag carrier flies an aging fleet of Russian-built, Soviet-era aircraft. Little is known about its service standards, but given that it is the only airline in the SkyTrax listings to hold the less-than-coveted one-star ranking, it is probably best avoided.
Then again, at least Air Koryo possesses one star, signifying “some very poor standards of product across the ranking sectors, with poor, inconsistent standards of staff service delivery in onboard and airport environments”, according to StarTrax. That’s still a lot better than many unclassified airlines. The unclassified category covers airlines that are either still subject to a Star Ranking review, and airlines that have been dropped or suspended from the Star Ranking program.
The latter includes carriers banned by the EU from operating in European airspace. This fearsomely long list includes Siem Reap Airways International of Cambodia, Benin Golf Air from the Republic of Benin, Bravo Air Congo from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kartika Airlines from Indonesia, Air Trust Company from Kazakhstan, Golden Rule Airlines from the Kyrgyz Republic, Transglobal Airways Corporation from the Philippines and many more.
Written by Peter Needham
