British holidaymakers voted for flag carrier British Airways as their favourite airline this week, in a poll carried out by Gocompare.
BA scooped 19.1 per cent of the vote in the survey of 3,000 Britons, comfortably beating their main rival Virgin Atlantic, which came second with 13.8 per cent.
Voters in the poll were asked to make their decision based on a number of factors – which naturally included cost, but also included the levels of service received on a flight and the overall levels of comfort.
British Airways has made strenuous efforts to win back passengers over the past few years, following a series of high-profile financial difficulties and long-running industrial relations problems. It now seems as if the publicity campaigns and special deals on cheap holidays and flights has paid off.
Thomson Airways took the third place in the poll with 6.4 per cent of the vote, followed by cheap flights carrier easyJet, with 4.9 per cent, and Emirates with 3.7 per cent. Other major players in the top ten were Singapore Airlines, with 2.7 per cent, Monarch Airlines, with 2.5 per cent and American Airlines and Qantas – who jointly took tenth place with 1.6 per cent apiece.
Fans of irony will also like the fact that BA ditched its tagline as “the world’s favourite airline” a few years ago and since then it has been enthusiastically picked up by no-frills giant Ryanair. Well, in the survey, the Irish carrier was voted the worst airline by almost a fifth of Britons, 19.3 per cent. Despite their appearance in the top ten “best” list, both easyJet and BA appeared in the top ten “worst” as well, in second and third place, with 12.1 per cent and 5.9 per cent respectively. Thomson Airways was also in there, at sixth place on 2.5 per cent of the vote.
Gocompare head of travel Jeremy Cryer noted that it was clear there was more to simply price when it came to rating cheap holidays and their providers, adding:”It’s interesting that even with the bucket shop pricing of the budget airlines, plenty of passengers still don’t consider their service good value for money.”
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