World’s best airline named as Qantas hits new low in rankings

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 No. 24 from 17th place last year.

Qantas’ ranking among the world’s best airlines has continued to decline.

It’s a new low for the airline, which had climbed as high as No. 4 on the list and was ranked the world’s fifth-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 69th to 74th.

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 the Fairmont Windsor Park, near London’s Heathrow Airport – but all were for Australia/Pacific-based airlines. The awards included best catering, best business class and best premium economy in the region.

The best airline for Australia/Pacific was Fiji Airways, which won for the second year in a row. The Pacific island airline came 14th overall.

Qatar Airways’ global win was its eighth in the awards’ 25-year history. The Middle Eastern airline also won best business class, best business class lounge and best airline in the Middle East.

Qatar Airways’ Qsuite business class.

Singapore Airlines came second, followed by Emirates, Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Cathay Pacific. Asian and Middle Eastern airlines dominated the top of the rankings again, 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 included the early departure of long-term chief executive Alan Joyce in September to make way for chief financial officer Vanessa Hudson.

Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson.Credit: Oscar Colman

On taking the reins, Hudson apologised to passengers 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 in which the airline sold 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 affected 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.

Commenting on this year’s results, a Qantas spokesperson said: “We have been listening to our customers and our people and have been acting on this feedback with significant investment already under way.

“We want our customers to feel the difference from the changes that we have put in place and, in recent months, we have seen customer satisfaction levels improve.”

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 related to how its survey system works or even what the business actually does.

Airlines, however, are quick to trumpet the results when favourable.