Does Qantas really represent us? What airlines say about their countries

We love airlines. And aeroplanes. And airports. And basically anything to do with the experience of travelling by air.

Traveller readers prove it: stories on air travel here always attract attention and are always cause for comment. People have opinions on aircraft and those who operate them. We like to talk about the business of being in the air far more than being on a train or in a bus or any other mode of transport.

Qantas is a friendly airline (when you’re face to face with staff).Credit: Getty Images

So it stands to reason that you’ve probably considered in the past whether airlines really do accurately characterise the country they purport to represent. Will a flight with Qantas give you a good idea of what Australia is like? Does Ryanair accurately portray the psyche of Ireland? Is Air China a fair representation of China itself?

If you’ve flown with any of the below airlines, to any of the below countries, you will know that they don’t always match up.

The airline: Qantas

The nation: Australia

Qantas’ Flying Kangaroo is instantly recognisable as Australian, but does the airline reflect that?Credit: Jeremy Piper

Let’s start with the most familiar airline, if not the easiest to categorise or assess. Qantas is many things to many people, an airline that stokes righteous rage and patriotic pride sometimes in the same people at the same time. But it’s a friendly airline (when you’re face to face with its staff), a safe airline, and one that’s largely dependable. It’s also, however, known for the disregard it showed its customers during, and in some instances after, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a sharp decline in public affection thereafter.

Australia the nation, I would argue, is roughly similar: a dependably safe place that is friendly on the surface, though not quite as knockabout and laid-back once you get to know its darker corners.

The airline: Singapore Airlines

The nation: Singapore

Singapore Airlines is one of the world’s great carriers.Credit: Getty Images

Try to find someone with something bad to say about Singapore Airlines: you’ll be searching for a while. This is one of the world’s great carriers, an airline with impeccable service, comfortable cabins, dependable timetables and some of the best food in the sky.

That squares pretty well with the experience of visiting Singapore: a safe, clean and efficient city-state with some of the best food on the ground. The way both the airline and the country achieve this excellence is probably padded in similar strictness, with little time for individuality or rebellion – but when it comes to flying at least, that’s probably a good thing.

The airline: Qatar Airways

The nation: Qatar

Economy class on a Qatar Airways Airbus A350.

There are two sides to the coin with Qatar. For the most part, this is another of the world’s great airlines, offering a dependable, comfortable experience with professional service, great food and what has to be the best business class on the planet. It was also, however, embroiled in controversy when, in October 2020, female passengers were forced from one of its planes and strip-searched at Doha airport (an Australian court last year ruled those women couldn’t sue Qatar Airways, as its employees were unable to influence the actions of the Qatari police, responsible for the search).

Qatar the country is like that: it’s modern, efficient, safe, clean. There’s a lot of money around. It all works. It also, however, has restrictive, regressive laws for women, and extensive issues with migrant workers’ rights.

The airline(s): United, Delta, American Airlines

The nation: United States

American airlines are hard to tell apart once you’re on board.Credit: iStock

I’ve grouped these three American carriers together because can anyone tell them apart? They’re all essentially the same to me, American airlines that tend to be underwhelming to those used to the luxuries of Middle Eastern and Asian carriers, with outdated facilities and terrible airports to service them. That’s not strictly true – the cabins are a lot better these days – but these airlines still lag the world leaders.

Which is strange, because the US is supposed to be the world leader. The best of the best. Land of the free, home of the brave, and so on. It has always seemed jarring that its airlines were so far behind the rest of the world. In the current environment, however, it’s not so shocking.

The airline: Air New Zealand

The nation: New Zealand

Air New Zealand started the trend for quirky, funny safety videos.

This is easy: everyone loves New Zealand, and everyone loves Air New Zealand. Goddamn it. This is the airline with the funny, quirky safety videos (before everyone else started doing funny, quirky safety videos), the safe, dependable carrier that gets you where you need to go – often New Zealand – with a smile. No major controversies, other than a brief flirtation with the Saudi military, and a strong safety record.

New Zealand the country is also safe, dependable, friendly, funny, and an overall joy to have anything to do with. Goddamn it.

The airline: Air China

The nation: China

Air China does bear a certain similarity to its home nation.Credit: iStock

Last time I flew Air China I remember joining a massive scrum of a queue at Sydney Airport check-in and saying to my partner: “Ah, it’s like we’re already there.” Air China does bear a certain similarity to its home nation, though maybe not one either the airline or nation would desire. There’s a sense of looming chaos to the flying experience, an idea that maybe things are not going to go quite as smoothly today as you would like.

China the country, meanwhile, would probably like to think of itself as ordered and predictable, comfortable and efficient – but it’s just not.

The airline: Lufthansa

The nation: Germany

As an airline, Lufthansa doesn’t really reflect what Germany is all about.

There’s a fundamental disconnect here. Germany is a nation renowned for its efficiency, its attention to detail, for the way things just work. It’s a mostly polite country, though one in which people will give you a few hard truths if they believe you’ve stepped out of line.

I’m not sure what the international reputation for its flagship airline, Lufthansa, really is. What I do know, however, is my personal experience with it over the past few years. And it has not been efficient. Cancelled flights, missed connections, lost luggage … I’ve had it all. And that’s not what Germany is about.

The airline: Ryanair

The nation: Ireland

Ryanair, the cheapest of the cheap.Credit: iStock

Here’s an airline that’s famous for being the budget carrier to end all budget carriers – so famous, in fact, that it’s surely supplanted Aer Lingus as Ireland’s star airline (it’s certainly bigger – the third biggest in the world by passengers carried). Ryanair is the stingiest of the stingy, the cheapest, the daggiest, the airline with the hilariously sarcastic, biting social media presence, the one that will take you for all you’ve got if you fail to obey its many terms and conditions. Follow its rules, however, and you’ll get where you’re going for next to nothing.

Is that what Ireland is like? The nation’s people are very funny, sarcastic and self-deprecating, so that certainly lines up. Ireland is not, however, particularly low-budget and it tends not to make fun of people who get things wrong (or try to take all their money off them when they do).