BANGKOK, 19 July 2018: Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways, over the last two years, have played musical chairs at the top of the World’s Best Airlines chart.
The music stopped at the Grand Awards ceremony in London, Tuesday evening, with Singapore Airlines sitting in the top chair.
Last year’s winner, Qatar Airways, takes the second spot, in an annual tussle between these two global giants that in recent years favoured the Middle East carrier.
Skytrax World Airline Awards were announced at the Langham Hotel, London and Asian airlines punched well above their weight overshadowing Europe’s big airline names.
World’s best airlines: the top 10
Singapore Airlines was named the World’s Best Airline with the Skytrax preamble noting it operates one of the World’s youngest fleet flying to destinations spanning a network spread over six continents.
Qatar Airways lost the top spot dropping to second place this year, but in the short spell it has been operating beyond the Middle East it has grown to more than 140 destinations, worldwide, spanning business and leisure destinations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America.
ANA All Nippon Airways in third place flies to around 80 international routes and over 110 domestic routes.
In fourth place, Emirates has evolved into a globally influential leader known the world over for its commitment to quality. With a fleet of more than 265 aircraft, Emirates currently flies to over 155 destinations in more than 80 countries around the world.
Fifth placed EVA Air has a global network that connects Asia and mainland China to Europe, North America and Oceania and links more than 60 major business and tourist destinations.
Cathay Pacific gained the sixth slot in the top 10 ranking followed by Lufthansa (7th), Hainan Airlines (8th), Garuda Indonesia (9th) and Thai Airways International (10th).
Other notable mentions in Skytrax’s various sub categories, that identified 20 top airlines in each list, included AirAsia named the World’s Best Low-cost Airline for the 10th consecutive year.
Thailand’s Nok Air sneaked into the World’s Best Low-cost Airline list at 20th place, while Jetstar Asia was ranked 12th.
In the sub category the World’s Best Economy Class Airlines 2018, Thai Airways International led the top 20-airline ranking followed by Singapore Airlines in second place, Qatar Airways in third place, Emirates fourth and ANA fifth.
In the World’s Best Regional Airline category, Bangkok Airways was voted the top airline for the fourth time, with Cathay Dragon in second place and Alaska Airlines in third place.
Skytrax publishes a full-list of 100 airlines ranking them annually.
Apart from Singapore Airlines, which topped the overall ranking as the World’s Best Airline, two other ASEAN airlines were in the top 10 of the 100 list; Garuda and THAI.
AirAsia achieved 28th place in the 100 ranking Malaysia Airlines (34), AirAsiaX (47), Philippine Airlines (49), Vietnam Airlines (50), SilkAir (56), Scoot (61) and JetstarAsia (70).
The World Airline Awards began in 1999, when Skytrax launched its first global, annual airline customer satisfaction survey. In 2000, the survey attracted a worldwide completion of 2.2 million entries, with the latest 2017-2018 survey achieving 20.36 million completed, eligible entries.
The mandate for the Skytrax survey from the outset was to deliver a survey and airline awards process that is independent, impartial and global.
There are no survey entry fees, no payment to attend the awards event and no charges for any use of the award logos and results by winning airlines.
