Singapore Airlines named world’s best airline in Skytrax awards
SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines (SIA) on Tuesday (Jul 17) was named the world’s best airline in Skytrax’s 2018 World Airline Awards, retaking the position it last held in 2008.
Qatar Airways, which was top last year, came in second. Japan’s ANA was in third place. The top 10 was rounded out by EVA Air, Cathay Pacific Airways, Lufthansa, Hainan Airlines, Garuda Indonesia and Thai Airways. While it missed out on the top spot this time around, Qatar Airways took home the best business class award for the third consecutive year. In addition, the airline was also named best airline in the Middle East and its business class seats - in the Qsuite were deemed the best in town. SIA has been moving up the rankings in recent years – it came in third in 2016 and was placed second in 2017.
The Singapore carrier also took top spot for three other categories - best airline in Asia, world’s best first class and best first class airline seat. The awards are based on surveys of more than 20 million travellers, who rated more than 335 airlines between August 2017 and May 2018. This is the fourth time that SIA has been named world’s best airline by the Londonbased research firm, after wins in 2004, 2007 and 2008. “A key ‘wow’ factor for customers is consistency and this proved to a real asset for Singapore Airlines who scored highly across both product and service,” said Skytrax CEO Edward Plaisted. Accepting the award at a ceremony in London on Tuesday, SIA CEO Goh Choon Phong said: “I dedicate it to the 26,000 SIA Group employees who focus every day on delivering the world’s best travel experience to our customers.” Thai Airways, meanwhile, was named the world’s best economy class airline by customers, while Japan Airlines was revealed as having the best economy class seats.
(Channel News Asia)