Air New Zealand slumps in world airline awards

With travellers facing chaos almost every time they enter an airport, some airlines have weathered the post-pandemic storm better than others.

With travel making a comeback, and the surge of passengers through airports around the world pushing airline staff to the limits, carriers have faced chaos akin to the challenges witnessed throughout the pandemic.

The summer season in the northern hemisphere drew crowds from around the world, with airports in the UK and across Europe struggling to meet customer demand.

A new airline ranking has determined which of those carriers were able to weather the storm of the post-pandemic travel boom, and which ones fell in terms of customer satisfaction and all around service.

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Qatar came out on top of the Skytrax rankings. Picture: AAP Image/Richard Wainwright.

Skytrax, a UK-based airline and airport review and ranking site, has released their results for 2022 — after conducting more than 14 million customer surveys in more than 100 countries between September 2021 to August 2022 to find out the world’s current favourite airline.

Coming out on top was an airline who is no stranger to the crown.

Qatar Airways, which has won the top prize a total of seven times since the awards were introduced in 1999, came out on top again for 2022 and also scooped up eight more awards, including Best Business Class, Best Business Class Seat and Best Business Class Lounge Dining.

Airlines around the world have faced challenging circumstances post pandemic. Picture: PETER PARKS / AFP.

Qatar Airways group chief executive, Akbar Al Baker, said the win was down to the airline’s “incredible employees” for “their continued dedication and drive” and said that “to win these awards in the same year that we celebrate our 25th anniversary is even more rewarding.”

“Consistent service, consistent product, consistent attention to passengers and absolute dedication from everyone that works in the airline,” he added as some of the airline’s key features.

Coming in second was Singapore Airlines, followed by Emirates in third position, ANA (All Nippon Airways) into fourth spot and rounding out the top five was Australia’s national carrier Qantas Airways.

However, some other airlines didn’t fare quite so well — with New Zealand’s national carrier dropping 10 places in the 2022 survey.

Air New Zealand went from 20th position last year, to 30th spot during this survey. But in a separate study in July, Air New Zealand placed second behind Qatar in the Airline Excellence Awards, as judged by airline safety and product rating review website AirlineRatings.com.

The steep slide for the airline comes a week after the carrier launched a new flagship route between Auckland and New York, being one of the longest flights in the world.

Air New Zealand dropped 10 spots in the rankings, while Qantas went from 8th in 2021 to 5th this year. Picture: Aviation / Aircraft / Exterior / Airplane / Airline

While the first flight between Auckland to New York’s JFK went off without a hitch, the return leg from JFK to Auckland 24 hours later was met with frustration, after the airline was forced to remove bags of around 60 passengers to lighten the aircraft’s load ahead due to combination of factors — including strong headwinds.

“To get all of our customers where they needed to be, the team took the unusual step of offloading around 65 bags to meet the load limits,” said Airline chief operating officer Alex Marren.

“Operating ultra-long-haul flights is challenging and Air New Zealand has been working towards the launch of this route for years, so it is incredibly disappointing that we weren’t able to bring all of our customers’ bags on Saturday’s inaugural flight.”

Despite a horror few weeks for Qantas, the airline fared relatively well in the 2022 survey, by taking out the top spot for ‘Best Airline’ in Australia/Pacific, ‘Best Premium’ economy class catering and ‘Best Business class’ and ‘Best economy class’ in Australia and Pacific.