Qatar Airways 'Best Middle East Airline'
The Doha-based airline, Qatar Airways, was named best airline in the Middle East, while Emirates and Etihad also won awards at the annual Skytrax World Airline Awards. Randi Sokoloff / The National
Qatar Airways has been named best airline in the Middle East, while Emirates and Etihad have also won awards at the annual Skytrax World Airline Awards.
The Doha-based carrier also won best economy class, while Emirates Airline was again named best inflight entertainment and Etihad Airways won its first best business-class title.
The awards, held in Hamburg last week, highlight the investments Gulf airlines have made in service offerings to compete in the Asian, European and US travel markets.
“Qatar Airways achieved a strong performance to take this award,” said Edward Plaisted, the chief executive of Skytrax, a UK-based consultancy that drew its results from an eight-month survey from more than 16 million air travellers. Its World Airline Awards are considered the top industry event.
“As a well-established five-star airline, Qatar Airways achieved success in the economy-class section, which was one of the most closely contested survey categories,” he said.
Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad drew inspiration from Asian airlines in building their brands in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and claimed fourth, fifth and seventh placings respectively in the best-airline category.
But the airlines of Asia, Australia and New Zealand can still claim to be the world’s best for service and quality, with the other seven winners hailing from the region including the winner, Cathay Pacific, and the runner-up, Singapore Airlines.
For the sixth time, Emirates dominated the inflight-entertainment category with its “ice Digital Widescreen” system.
“In recent years, the importance of inflight entertainment across the typical air-travel experience has grown considerably, and this repeat win demonstrates that Emirates remains at the forefront in delivering exceptional standards of entertainment options to their customers,” Mr Plaisted said.
Emirates also took second place for best first class, with inflight showers aboard its A380 aircraft helping it move up the rankings, while Qatar was third after Singapore Airlines.
Etihad is the youngest of the three premier Gulf airlines and its award for best business class comes after being in fifth place a year ago.
Although tickets sales for business-class cabins represent a fraction of overall sales, they bring a much larger proportion of revenues.
“For Etihad Airways to win the accolade of having the best business-class experience when the airline flew its first aircraft just over five years ago is a remarkable success,” Mr Plaisted said. “This category of the awards is one of the most closely contested, and an area of great competition among the world’s leading airlines.”
The outlook is sombre for global air travel, which has fallen in line with the global economy over the past six months. Passenger volumes fell by 10.1 per cent in February compared with the same period a year ago, while air freight dropped 22.1 per cent – the third month in a row of 20 per cent drops.
“At a time of global financial crisis and its inherent impact on the airline industry, it is heartening to see that Etihad are seeking to build passenger loyalty by creating a raft of quality product and service standards that a customer will genuinely want to come back to,” Mr Plaisted said.
Ivan Gale
The National