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human
ELI5: Why do US based airlines lag behind in service and quality, especially in their premium cabins?

Anything from ground service, to in flight food, how can an economic powerhouse like the US have such universally poor quality airlines? (Certainly I'm not talking about safety.)

I don't see any US-based carriers on this list of top airlines:

ANA All Nippon Airways

Asiana Airlines

Cathay Pacific Airways

Emirates

Etihad Airways

EVA Air

Garuda Indonesia

Hainan Airlines

Japan Airlines

Korean Air

Lufthansa

Qantas Airways

Qatar Airways

Singapore Airlines

Swiss

Thai Airways

Turkish Airlines

EDIT: I wanted to add 2 cents from Gary Leff:

"What I desperately wish I could remember is which of these books it was where I read extensively on United Airlines President Pat Patterson. Patterson had been the Wells Fargo loan officer who authorized funding for Pacific Air Transport, later acquired by Boeing Air Transport, which was ultimate merged in with other carriers to become United Air Lines. Patterson moved over to Boeing and then to United, becoming General Manager and ultimately President of the airline.

While he’s perhaps best known for approving the hiring of in-flight nurses which morphed into onboard flight attendants, he’s also more than any other, the man who brought union control into the operation of the airline business. The version of the story I recall is that he believed that the unions were closer to their workers, and better understood their needs, than management was. It wasn’t just a matter of collective bargaining, but deeply held belief, that the workers would be better off (and that this would benefit the airline) if unions and union procedures handled scheduling.

I’m not a scholar in this area by any means, but the shift from company control over its employees to union control — and from management evaluation of employees to roles and responsibilities determined by seniority — has consequences which reverberate across the industry today.

Great flight attendants provide great service because they’re proud to do so, because they’re driven to do so, internally. In some ways the exceptional US flight attendant deserves much more praise because they are doing it on their own, when there is little if any benefit to them to do so. They aren’t going to lose their job as a result of occasionally grumpy and often lackluster service. They aren’t going to get paid more for going above and beyond for a customer. They do it because they’re internally driven and believe it’s the right thing to do. I truly thank them and honor them.

But as long as scheduling is done by seniority, and pay is doled out by route, and as long as commendations and criticisms are only ancillary to performance evaluations, pay, and perks, airlines aren’t going to be able to align the incentives of their frontline workforce to deliver outstanding service.

It isn’t all institutions, and it isn’t all culture, but the two of them combine so that superior companies drawing on service cultures and fostering those cultures can provide a superior experience. Mediocre companies drawing on a service culture will offer good and bad, just as companies here in the US without strong service institutions will occasionally offer flashes of brilliance (but often ‘good enough’). And in most cases I don’t expect either the cultures or the institutions to change very much."
gpt
A good number (but not all) of those airlines are subsidised by their government for political/ prestige/ strategic reasons, so a $100 ticket buys you $150 of product. Emirates/ Eithad/ Qatar especially don't have business models that would survive without outside money.