American Airlines has beaten Korean Air in the final of the first Airline World Cup to be crowned World Champions, according the “Kaminski” index, a formula which helps calculate an airline’s true potency.
Flightglobal has staged a virtual Airline World Cup, with each nation participating in the real thing in South Africa represented by their largest carrier (e.g. Germany=Lufthansa). The results of the tournament saw a final between South Korea’s Korean Air and the US giant American Airlines.
American Airlines did it the hard way, topping a tough group in style before defeating Qantas, Lufthansa and LAN Airlines en route to the Final.
The Index that powered the tournament was compiled by the Flightglobal Insight team, who provide bespoke research projects, sourcing data from our ACAS and ATI databases.
Flightglobal Insight’s Research Manager Trevor Mountford says it’s no surprise the US team romped to victory, and puts the success of the carrier down to its unrivalled strength in depth combined with the crucial “twelfth man” in the form of a massive global following.
“With a fleet size of more than 600 active aircraft American Airlines boasts the biggest squad of all participating nations. It’s a tremendous advantage to start any match with regardless of the opposition,” says Mountford.
“Additionally, their support of 93 million passengers per year also exceeds any of the other nations in the tournament.”
Meanwhile Chilean operator LAN Airlines battled through against the odds to claim victory in the third place play off against Dutch heavyweights KLM.
LAN CEO Mr Enrique Cueto Plaza’s 16 years of experience and their natural flair helped the South American’s defeat Swiss and TAP Portugal before succumbing to the World Champions in the Semi Finals.
Elsewhere in the tournament other high profile clashes included Germany (Lufthansa) yet again beating England (British Airways) in the knock out stages and the Netherlands (KLM) beating Italy (Alitalia) for a place in the Quarter Finals.
Flightglobal’s complicated formula – known as the Kaminski Index named – helps calculate an overall figure based on nine separate data sources.
Values featured in the formula include: the change in Airline Business World Airline Ranking, number of operational routes and current fleet size. Crucially the Index also includes a random integer – representing the vital element of luck.
Each value represents an equivalent statistic for the national soccer teams out in South Africa. For example, livery rating (out of 10) equates to a team’s style where as the number of operational routes is akin to their tactics.
See how it works …
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The Kaminski Index score was then applied to the existing World Cup Groups to determine who would make it through. Then at each of the knock out stages the Index formula was repeated for those airlines still left in the tournament to calculate who would make it through to final and take away the ultimate prize.
Related links:
- How we calculated the Airline World Cup using the Kaminski Index
- Who do you think would win the Airline World Cup?
- How the teams flew to the 2010 World Cup
Source: FlightGlobal.com
