2018 ratings of airlines and airports

CLAIMS PROCESSING

factors: on-time performance, quality of service and a claims-processing score.

“SAA has a fantastic claims-processing score,” says Ashley Raiteri, an industry advisor for AirHelp. The airline earned 8.69 points out of 10. “Irregularities in flights are going to happen,” Raiteri adds. “What’s important is whether the airline has planned for that so they can make the experience less hellish for the consumer.”

Surprises exist on both the best and worst lists. Iberia, which ranked among the best airlines on a similar report from FlightStats last year, purely according to on-time performance, appears on AirHelp’s worst airlines list due to its poor “claim processing score”. KLM and Emirates, airlines with passionate fan bases, ranked 11th and 16th respectively.

While budget carriers did not fare well, with Ryanair, EasyJet Airline and WOW Air all appearing among the bottom 10 airlines, there was one exception: Norwegian Air Shuttle ranked 12th overall, reflecting a 76% on-time record.

The data concerning best and worst airports contain similar surprises. No American hubs were ranked in the top 30.

Seattle-Tacoma took the domestic lead, in the 33rd slot, while a large number of Brazilian airports dominated the charts, which Raiteri attributes to good local weather and a “hub and spoke” route network that keeps flights on time.

AirHelp’s data for airports cover 141 destinations and factor in on-time performance, quality of service and online consumer sentiment, but its rankings heavily favour the first two criteria.

Different airports have different problems,from power outages to weather delays. – Bloomberg