<p>All opinions are my personal opions and should not be taken as &#8216;right&#8217; or &#8216;wrong&#8217;. We can agree to disagree.</p>
<p>Most airlines get something right. Those who get several things right have an advantage&#8230;. yet sometimes you like one sometimes the other.</p>
<p>I have two airlines I like a lot: Delta and British Airways. This can be both from an experience perspective as from a professional one. Let me explain&#8230;.</p>
<p>Delta has grown tremendously over the last years from an airline that was hopelessly behind to one that offers very reliable service with high quality aircraft, a great business class set-up (I fly mainly business class when flying long haul), and from a professional standpoint, they offer excellent account management &#8211; good reports and thorough follow-up. Moreover the company has a real long-time vision and strategy.</p>
<p>What is still missing? A more flexible approach &#8211; from a personal perspective, they do not offer lactose free meals (unless you also give up on meat). That is ridiculous &#8211; you should be able to order that &#8211; most catering companies must be able to provide that.<br />
From a European perspective, we also miss the &#8220;je ne sais quoi&#8221; &#8211; that little touch that makes your trip an experience rather than just a trip.</p>
<p>British Airways is the airline who invented the lie Flat Business Class seat. Unfortunately 1 out of 2 (roughly) business class passengers needs to fly backwards. Due to the high degree of privacy, you need to book an aisle seat if you are claustrophobic (luckily I am not). But the seats are good (although an update could be considered, hint hint).</p>
<p>Their pricing is very decent, Terminal 5 is excellent (despite the undeserved reputation it has to drag with it). The lounges in T5 are exceptional &#8211; food offering, showers, etc. Both in the Business Class lounge, the First lounge (for Gold Cards) and the Concorde room (for people flying First).<br />
And at the same time, they manage to act as if it is all a special deal and they manage to make it feel more special than it actually is&#8230;.</p>
<p>Account Management at British Airways? Practically non-existant &#8211; the account managers are good people but the structure of the account management does not reflect at all how companies now work globally. Nice people but no structure whatsoever&#8230;<br />
We do several millions of business with them and no one except my own account manager seems to realize although we have a &#8220;global&#8221; contract. The contract offers no personalisation whatsoever.</p>
<p>So does the ideal airline exist? The one that pleases everyone? Probably not, but we can all have fun trying to find it!</p>