Kata Airways has been named the World's Best Airline betweenty twenty five at the.
Annual World Airline Awards.
This is the second year in a row that Kata has been named the world's best.
Ellis Taylor, He's our aviation expert.
He's the Asia Dashboard editor at Syrium, and he joins me live on six PR this afternoon.
Get a Ellis get a early, Good to be with you, Good to have you.
On the show today. Ellis what makes Katar better than the rest?
Well, I think a lot of people really enjoy the fact that they've got a very strong business class. The Q sweet seats sort of seemed to be a cut
above the rest. I can't comment personally, I haven't flown them, but it's what we've often seen with the Middle Eastern carriers is they'll really focus in on the sort of this halo product of like a really banging business class seat, a great experience in that cabin, and for the rest of us who don't travel in business, the feeling is that there's a bit of a halo and that some of that fairy dust I guess travels down into economy class and so forth, So you know, fair play to them.
They this is an award that they've won consistently. You know, everybody I know who's flown on kata sort of has been a consistently great experience. So it really seems to be that they have struck some good thoughts, which is all good until I guess the next person comes along and tries to one up them.
CAT first, Singapore second in the rankings this year, Cathay Pacific third, which I'll come to in more details shortly, Emirates, and then all nip On Airways rounding out the top five. Does that sound about right to you?
Ellis, Yes, I think so. And you know, I guess the standout in that is Cathe Pacific. You know, after COVID they were criticized for I guess coming back a little bit cautiously and you know, not having things to the same level they had pre COVID, But they now seem to have gotten above that and begetting I guess back into the swing of things. So, you know, Singapore Airlines is always a class act, no matter what CA
and you're in. And obviously you know, very big carrier here into WA carries a lot of people to Singapore and also well beyond and a lot of tourists coming on that. And similarly A and A is a very good experience, just good Japanese carrier again flies to Wa and provides us a really good connection up to Japan.
Yeah, probably a bit of a surprise A and A makes the top five because Quanus is number fourteen.
It was twenty four last year.
It shows you how much the national carrier is falling compared to how it was viewed pre COVID Dellus.
Yeah, and I think, look, let's be fair, skytracks goes off of passenger surveys and so generally I think there's a bit of bias with surveys where if you've had a bad experience you kind of mark everything down harshly, and if you've had a good experience, it might be well, just good, or a few would go to the excellent sort of things. And you know, there's a bit of
a national sport, isn't there about hating Quatus. But you know, again they're a carrier which has been through a lot of issues with its lead, with it's getting aircraft back up through the air and so forth, and so you know they're starting to get better at that. And I think you know, in time, well, those improvements will only just grow and grow and they'll probably head further up that list.
Yeah, I think these are always subjective anyway, these poles, aren't they lis because people might be using airlines based on the fact that they are a partner airline of another airline that they win frequent Well when I say win that they accumulate frequent fly miles with or it might just be there was a good deal on that particular route.
So it's always very subjective.
The Middle Eastern airlines, the Asian airlines do seem to dominate because they seem to be the takeoff points really for lots of global destinations.
Well, that's right, and you know, it's one of these things that there is no perfect system. It is always going to be sort of subjective. And you know, in some ways that's the benefit of awards like skytracks or even you know, Google reviews and so on, is at least you're getting sort of people's thoughts and opinions as opposed to just say data on what the spacing between the seats is or you know, what type of trade
table it is and that kind of a thing. So you know, that's not to say they're not helpful, but you know, it is also one of those things where you know you can't necessarily hold it up to scientific scrutiny.
If you want to go that way, one double three eight eighty two, what's the best airline you have traveled on? One double three eight eighty two, what's your favorite airline in the world.
You're touched on?
Cathay Are They're going to be doubling their daily services between.
Hong Kong and Perth from November.
That's a good shot in the arm for local and international tourism. Elis.
Yeah.
Absolutely, anytime we get one of these big carriers that putting more services onto their hub airport, it really is a big win. Particularly for going to double daily. Is that actually opens up a whole lot of other connections
that you can get. I mean, I think a lot of us would have probably experienced where you go on a flight to somewhere and you get a nice easy connection one way where it might be sort of you know, only an hour or two layer for in the airport, and then coming back it might be ten hours, it might even be a day. So having two flights today really shortens that time, and you know, Conversely, that also works for tourists who are coming into WA when it's going to be more convenient to do that. It makes
it a more appealing flight. And for Cafe they've got good services into Canada and North America. It's a really good connection from Perth, so that's going to be a boom. I think both ways.
The federal government's also going to provide a further thirty million dollars to keep REX Airlines of float.
I see Catherine King, the federal Transport Minister.
To say today indicating that they're getting closer to finding a buyer for the airline, which is your administration less. Is this all that the government could do? We can't have REX fhalan. It's not just about regional Western Australian flights. There's a whole eb of re in the Eastern States which will be affected if RIX were to be granted for good.
Yeah. Absolutely, and I think this is actually quite a positive story. The other part that goes with it is that the administrators have said, look, we've received a number of bits of interest and we're whittling them down and starting negotiations, but we need to extend the administration and so therefore they need to sort of have some additional backstop funding I guess, to keep the airline operating whilst they go through this, and they're looking to extend that
out to December. So, you know, I think a few months back the government was making sort of big noises that look, if nobody comes forward to buy REX, then we'll effectively nationalize it. And I think that that's a bad idea from a policy perspective, particularly when we do have other airlines in different parts of Australia who are sort of willing and able to step in. But you know, this sort of says that there's enough interest out there
to keep REX going. And ultimately, i'd imagine that any bidder is going to want to grow it now, whether that means it grows it as a regional airlines still or if they want to throw the dice and go back onto mainline routes. You know, that'll be interesting to see them. We'll only know once that transaction goes ahead. But yeah, the upshot is it looks like we're going to have a private REX in the future.
Yeah, and is Nexus one of those airlines which may be looking at purchasing the WA services or being part of some sort of conglomerate which may own the airline, which may flight out of administration.
Ellis.
Yeah, there's been some discussion in particularly the Financial Review has sort of mentioned them as being potentially interested. I haven't been able to force that myself, but there is some sense to that. I mean, it's been on record that Nexus has looked at those routes in the past in WA, so you know, maybe they could end up in there. I mean, really, we are just in some ways at the start of a process, and these things
can become quite convoluted. You know, four bidders can turn into one quickly, and sometimes it'll be all four bitters going together, and you know it'll be interesting to see what emerges. But it's not going to be a quick deal. Really. It's going to be towards the end of the year is when we'll find out who's going to own it, and then probably it will then take another guessing, you know, a year or two for a content strategy to kind of emerge from that.
Good on you LUs always appreciate your time and you're very good to us.
Thank you very much.
No worries, Ollie, enjoy the match.