IRISH airline Aer Lingus has been ranked amongst the best airlines in the world, according to a consumer poll.
The former state-owned airline came ninth in a list of 87 global airlines by startup company AirHelp, who help passengers claim compensation in the case of delays or cancellations.
The airline, which received a 7.97 score, was scored on its on-time performance and quality of service, which ranked above average compared to other carriers and larger European airlines.
The quality of service measurement was calculated using Skytrax score, which measures each airline across a number of categories, including cabin seating, amenities and service delivery among others.
Other airlines ahead of Aer Lingus, which has its most popular routes to London Heathrow and London Gatwick respectively, included Singapore Airlines with a score of 8.73, Etihad Airways with 8.48, Qatar with 8.46, British Airways with 8.14, and Virgin Atlantic with 7.99.
Ireland's largest carrier Ryanair was ranked fifth from the bottom with a score of 5.21.
Bulgaria Air was ranked last on the list, followed by SmartWings, Tunisair, Monarch and the Irish airline.
"Two of the criteria used by AirHelp, ‘on time performance’ and ‘quality and service’ are excellent key performance indicators informing leisure and business travellers of what to expect when booking a flight," Monarch wrote in its blog.
"However, the third criteria that AirHelp uses, ‘how well they resolve flight delay compensation claims’ is an entirely subjective and narrow criteria which is only based on whether the airline will deal directly with AirHelp as a claims management company – something that Monarch does not do."
"We only deal with customer compensation claims directly with customers, or if the customer wishes to use a solicitor or claims management company to handle their claim, with SRA (Solicitors’ Regulation Authority) regulated firms or claims management companies," it added.
"This decision was made because Monarch believes it is in our customers’ best interests. AirHelp is not regulated by the SRA."
Ryanair has been rated one of the worst airlines in the world. (Picture: Sarko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie)Ryanair also described the findings as irrelevant, pointing to the latest Rate My Flight statistics as a measure of its customer service standards.
Having scored well for its on time performance, and received an average rating for its quality of service, AirHelp rated Ryanair's claim processing and customer service below the average for most European airlines.
"We don’t comment on fabricated rankings produced by compensation chasing websites to generate publicity and we are amazed that newspapers publish them," a Ryanair spokesperson said.
"The fact that over 90 per cent of our flights are on time and we receive the fewest complaints highlights how irrelevant these 'statistics’ are.
"Thanks to our unbeatable low fares and Always Getting Better customer service some 130m customers will choose to fly Ryanair this year, making us Europe’s No.1 airline, the only ranking that matters.
"Furthermore our latest Rate My Flight statistics, based on a survey of over 300,000 Ryanair customers in January, February and March, showed that over 92 per cent rated their experience as good/very good/excellent, figures which speak for themselves.
"Ryanair complies fully with all EU261 legislation and deal with each claim on a case by case basis.”
Meanwhile, Monarch CEO Andrew Swaffield said: “Because of our decision not work with this company, we have scored a lot lower than we deserve. For all these reasons we refute the validity of AirHelp and the findings of this ‘research’.
"We recommend that customers refer to Feefo, the OAG tables and Tripadvisor as they are well known and objective scoring mechanisms.”
