No U.S. Carriers Among World's Best Airlines?

Skytrax has been conducting its

World Airline Survey

since 1999. For 2013, the survey results covered more than 200 airlines, with respondents representing more than 100 different nationalities. The company boasts that it uses sophisticated data-weighting algorithms to compensate for different sample sizes, and has fraud-detection mechanisms in place to maintain the results' legitimacy. And the research is not funded by any of the ranked companies.

In other words, as surveys of the world's airlines go, this is arguably the gold standard.



The Best Overall



So, which of the world's airlines were ranked best overall?

Here are the top 20:

1. Emirates

2. Qatar Airways

3. Singapore Airlines

4. ANA All Nippon Airways

5. Asiana Airlines

6. Cathay Pacific Airways

7. Etihad Airways

8. Garuda Indonesia

9. Turkish Airlines

10. Qantas Airways

11. Lufthansa

12. EVA Air

13. Virgin Australia

14. Malaysia Airlines

15. Thai Airways

16. Swiss Int'l Air Lines

17. Korean Air

18. Air New Zealand

19. Hainan Airlines

20. Air Canada



U.S. Airlines



Given the global nature of the survey, it shouldn't come as any surprise that American carriers fared poorly against competitors from Asia and, increasingly, the Middle East.

The best showing for a U.S. airline in the "Best Overall" category was Virgin America, at number 26. Other U.S. carriers: Delta, number 45; JetBlue, 46; United, 57; Alaska, 62; Southwest, 74; Hawaiian, 79; American, 81; US Airways, 97.



Best Alliance



Among the other categories of note was the award for the best global airline alliance.

Of the three alliances, survey respondents voted oneworld the best, followed by Star and SkyTeam.

That's a result that's likely to puzzle U.S.-based travelers, who generally favor Star over oneworld.



Reader Reality Check



Which airline gets your vote for best carrier overall?



This article originally appeared on FrequentFlier.com.