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Ranking everything from customer service, food and drink and boarding experiences, this is how the biggest airlines ranked.

The worst airlines

For the fourth year running, Ryanair was scored the lowest rated airline out of the lot.

For the fourth year running, Ryanair scored the lowest out of the airlines (Photo: Shutterstock)

Customers gave Ryanair the lowest score of just one star across all of the categories except one. This meant in areas including boarding, seat comfort, customer service and cabin experience, travellers gave the company the lowest score possible.

The one area where Ryanair didn’t score just one star was value for money, the supposed the strength of the budget airline, which only managed to score two stars.

Rated just higher than Ryanair is British Airways, which took a nosedive in rankings from previous customer surveys. In 2015, BA topped the short haul category, but this year it was rated among the worst for the likes of food, seat comfort and value for money across both short and long haul services, according to Which?.

“Two in five of BA’s passengers said the food wasn’t worth the money on short-haul economy,” says the report from Which?. One traveller complained about “warm wine in a plastic glass” and another said that the meal they’d bought “wouldn’t feed a small child”.

While some customers had complaints about the quality of the food, many travellers said that they didn’t even get a chance to try the food as the trolley had reportedly run out by the time it reached the back of the plane.

British Airways response

British Airways responded to the low ranking of the Which? survey.

A BA spokesperson said, “Our own data shows customer satisfaction scores have increased, and continue to increase, as we deliver our £6.5bn investment for customers on new aircraft, new food, new lounges and new technology.

“We offer our customers choice of cabins on all our flights, lounges for business class customers, free food for all long-haul flights and business class for short haul, and we are delighted to be able to offer our customers the most extensive network by any UK airline.”

Ryanair has not responded to this years surveys results, but described the customer survey from Which? as “totally unrepresentative and worthless” in previous years.

The best airlines

Topping the short haul economy list this year is Aurigny Air Services, which received a whopping 81 per cent score from customers. The customer score combines the overall satisfaction of the airline experience and the “likelihood to recommend the airline” according to the survey definition. This is in stark contrast to the 40 per cent customer score that Ryanair was given.

Coming in second was Jet2 who received praise from customers, especially in the customer service category. It came in just underneath Aurigny Air Services with an overall customer score of 80 per cent.

The results from the survey showed that travellers would choose Jet2 for short haul routes and Virgin Atlantic for transatlantic flights.

The full list and where they ranked

This is the full list of short haul airlines, ranked from best to worst:

Aurigny Air Services Jet2 SAS Scandinavian Airlines Aer Lingus Swiss Norwegian Lufthansa Eurowings easyJet KLM TAP Portugal Flybe TUI Airways Wizz Air British Airways Vueling Airlines Ryanair

Ryanair voted worst airline by Which? for fourth year running: the full list