World’s Best Airline Named and Qatar Is Number 1
By Craig Platt
Qatar Airways has been named the world’s best airline for 2024 at the World Airline Awards, taking the title from last year’s winner Singapore Airlines.
Meanwhile, Qantas continued to fall in the rankings, dropping to number 24 from 17th place last year .
It’s a new low for the airline, which had previously climbed as high as No 4 on the list and was ranked the world’s 5th best airline as recently as 2022.
The results were also bad for Virgin Australia, which fell from 46th to 54th place in the top 100, while Jetstar fell from 69 to 74.
The only Australian airline to improve its standing was Rex, which climbed six spots to 50th position.
Qantas won five awards at the event – announced on Monday at Fairmont Windsor Park, near London’s Heathrow Airport – but all were for airlines based in the Australia/Pacific region. Awards included best catering, best business class and best premium economy for the Australia/Pacific.
Qatar Airways won the title of world’s best for the eighth time in the awards’ 25-year history. The Middle Eastern airline also won the awards for best business class, the best business class lounge, and the best airline in the Middle East.
Singapore Airlines came second, followed by Emirates, Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Cathay Pacific. As usual, Asian and Middle Eastern airlines dominated the top of the rankings, though Turkish Airlines, which recently launched its first Australian routes , Air France and Swiss also made the top 10.
Qantas’ results come after a bruising 12 months for the airline, which saw the early departure of long-term chief executive Alan Joyce in September to make way for chief financial officer Vanessa Hudson.
Hudson apologized and promised to repair Qantas’ reputation with customers, making a major change to the airline’s frequent flyer scheme . However, since her tenure began Qantas has been ordered to pay more than $120 million over a scandal that saw the airline selling tickets for flights it had already cancelled.
After last year’s poor result, a Qantas spokesperson claimed the issues faced by the airline during the 2022-23 survey period had impacted the rankings and that “a lot has changed since and if you ran this survey today, the results would be very different”. The survey period for this year ran from September 2023 to May 2024.
The award results reflect similar surveys that found Qantas’ reputation as one of Australia’s most trusted brands has collapsed.
The World Airline Awards are based on online customer-satisfaction surveys conducted by consultancy firm Skytrax, with passengers from 100 countries taking part and more than 350 airlines featuring in the final results. Skytrax claims the awards are the world’s largest airline-satisfaction survey.
Some aviation experts have questioned Skytrax’s methodology and lack of transparency over its awards process. According to some reports, Skytrax has refused to answer questions over how its survey system works or even what the business actually does .
Airlines, however, are quick to trumpet the results when favorable.
The World’s Top 20 Airlines in 2024
- Qatar Airways
- Singapore Airlines
- Emirates
- ANA All Nippon Airways
- Cathay Pacific Airways
- Japan Airlines
- Turkish Airlines
- EVA Air
- Air France
- Swiss International Air Lines
- Korean Air
- Hainan Airlines
- British Airways
- Fiji Airways
- Iberia
- Vistara
- Virgin Atlantic
- Lufthansa
- Etihad Airways
- Saudi Arabian Airlines
The Age
