Singapore’s national carrier has been dethroned as the king of the skies, after the world’s best airline crown went to Qatar Airways at this year’s Skytrax World Airline Awards.
The awards, which are now in their 19th year, are considered the Oscars of the aviation industry. They are decided by a customer satisfaction ranking, which surveyed over 21.6 million travellers across 100 nationalities between 2018 and 2019.
Skytrax said that the survey, which is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Chinese, had seen a “substantial increase” in the number of Chinese and Spanish surveys completed.
The 2019 Awards ranked the top three airlines in the world as Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines (SIA) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) respectively.
Rounding out the top five was Cathay Pacific and Emirates.
Skytrax spokesman Edward Plaisted said Qatar Airways had “high standards” and its staff members worked hard to satisfy customers.
Qatar’s win this year makes it the fifth time the airline has been the world champion, the highest number in the awards’ history.
SIA has won the title four times. The Singapore carrier fell back to second place after coming in tops last year for its “consistent” product and service standards.
