Air Canada??? Really?

Yesterday I got an email from Air Canada which included in its headlines "Skytrax Award: Best International Airline in North America" and if you follow the link, it further explains

Just a few of the reasons we were ranked “Best International Airline in North America” in a worldwide survey of 18.8 million global air travelers**, took home five top honours in Business Traveler’s “Best in Business Travel” award program*** and was named Global Traveler Magazine’s Best International Airline in North America****

with the footnote

**The survey was conducted by independent research firm Skytrax between July 2010 and May 2011 using over 38 different aspects of passenger satisfaction to rank airlines’ product and service standards. This annual survey is regarded in the air transportation industry as a primary benchmarking tool for passenger satisfaction levels of airlines throughout the world.

This made me think. Has someone perfected the art of rigging a survey that much? Or are we led to the unbelievable conclusion that other North American airlines are actually *WORSE* than Air Canada?

But maybe I'm just bitter after years of having essentially no choice, and just having to put up with things like having the first leg of your flight silently dropped, leaving you stranded in Italy without a flight, with airlines apparently completely unable to communicate with each other so that you're left standing down the corridor at a pay phone on hold for eons at international long distance rates to try to get it fixed, and then Air Canada's idea of recompense being a modest discount on your next flight with them that if you took a suitably expensive flight would just about cover the additional expenses you incurred just to get home, and that's not counting the long distance in that. @#$@#%@.