Luxury Insider - The Online Luxury Magazine

It is not uncommon for executives and businessmen to fly to another city on an overnight flight, just in time for an early morning meeting. In these situations, there are few things worse than to arrive feeling as stiff as a board and nursing body aches as a result of a poor night’s sleep on the plane.

That would be an unlikely consequence, however, if you have traveled to your destination in the First or Business Class of the finest airlines in the world. Indeed, competition is heating up among airlines to create ever-more luxurious experiences in the front of the jet-liner.

In this "Selections" feature, we pick out the airlines with the most exquisite First and Business Class cabins to ensure you get to your destination in style and comfort.

There is no single factor that makes a great flying experience. Tangible elements (like seat width and personal amenities) and intangible elements (like service and food quality) all combine to determine whether you arrive at a destination de-stressed or distressed.

While there are a number of different awards given to airlines by various organizations and publications, some possess a certain degree of unavoidable biasness (i.e. the survey participants' or judging panels' country of origin) or incompleteness (e.g. differences in judging criteria emphasis).

In order to minimize any subjectivity and biasness, we made the following recommendations by placing a greater weightage on certain important tangible elements of air-travel, such as seat size (directly impacting comfort and quality of sleep) and seat amenities (impacting possibility and efficiency of work on board).

Interviews with jet-setting businessmen and executives were also carried out to get a sense of the quality of service, ultimately the benchmark of what distinguishes a great airline from a good one.

The result is our Selections of the finest First and Business Class airlines in the world.