Skytrax have named Qatar Airways as the top airline for 2015. With European airlines failing to break into the top ten, it made me wonder how much this affects the wider public’s choice of who to travel with.

In the 2015 Skytrax awards, the top ten were named as Qatar Airways (at number one) then Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Etihad, ANA, Garuda, EVA, and Qantas, so the question remains as to whether you would choose to use these airlines as your number one option over British Airways, ranked a ‘lowly’ 20th in the world.

Qatar, as well as offering a direct flight to Doha, offers an extensive network worldwide. The same (although exchanging Doha for other hub cities) is true of all the other airlines, meaning that they offer excellent routes IF you are prepared to change and take a longer journey. Of course, the sole exception on this list is anything going to Australia or New Zealand, where you are only going to be looking to minimise your journey time and the amount of stops you have, rather than looking for a direct flight experience.

Charlotte and I chose to use Emirates to go to South Africa a few years ago, but while we saved a good few quid, the overall difference in cost compared to flying direct with BA was not huge and would have saved us about 10 hours’ flight time (including stopover time). While Emirates treated us superbly, giving us cake and champagne to celebrate our anniversary, and even giving us a photo of us on the flight signed by the cabin staff, we felt absolutely shattered by the time we arrived in Cape Town.

Fast forward a few years and we went to Hong Kong with BA for the simple reason that they offered direct flights (I confess we would have used Cathay but they don’t offer the A380). We figured, correctly in my opinion, that it would still be a good flight and the journey time being reduced would make the bigger difference to our trip.

With this in mind, I think that on indirect routes we tend to look at the likes of Skytrax ratings but where a direct option is in place we tend to favour this if the carrier is one we know and trust. It is only when we head on a route where an indirect option is required that we start to look at the ‘top’ airlines and make our decision.

Let me know what you think and if the rating of an airline plays a key role in your decision regarding who you fly with.