Revealed: The best airline in the Middle East for 2020 is… Emirates
Airline Ratings, a product rating website, named Air New Zealand the world's best airline
Dubai: Emirates has been ranked in the top 10 best global airlines and has won the coveted award for the best long-haul Middle East flights.
The AirlineRatings.com Airline Excellence Awards, judged by seven editors with over 200 years’ industry experience, combines major safety and government audits, with 12 key criteria that include: fleet age, passenger reviews, profitability, investment rating, product offerings, and staff relations.
Airline Ratings, the world’s only safety and product rating website, also honoured Emirates for the Best Inflight Entertainment (IFE) award for 2020.
“Emirates was one of the pioneers of IFE, and one of the first to install seatback videos in economy. Today’s IFE platform, ICE, is in a class of its own,” said Airline Ratings Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Thomas.
The airline of the year award went to Air New Zealand, which was honoured for its in-flight innovations, operational safety, environmental leadership and motivation of its staff.
“In our analysis, Air New Zealand came out number one in most of our audit criteria, which is an outstanding performance when it’s up against carriers with more resources and scale on this same list of best airlines for 2020,” said Thomas.
Qatar Airways once again picked up Best Catering and Best Business Class for its Qsuites.
“The airline’s Qsuite is a first-class experience in business class. It leaves little to chance, and our judges rated it as one of the best overall business-class products they had seen. It sets a standard to which some airlines can only aspire,” said Thomas.
Another new winner for the Airline Excellence Awards was Cebu Pacific, which picked up the Most Improved Airline award for 2020.
For Excellence in Long Haul travel:
Delta Air Lines (Americas), Lufthansa (Europe), Emirates (Middle-East/Africa) and Cathay Pacific Airways (Asia).
Best Low-Cost Airline:
JetBlue (Americas), Wizz (Europe) and AirAsia / AirAsia X (Asia/Pacific) and Air Arabia (Middle-East / Africa).
Top 20 airlines
This year, AirlineRaings.com has exceeded its Top Ten to Top Twenty to recognise the many airlines passengers can choose from.
They are: Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Qantas, Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, Virgin Atlantic, EVA Air, Qatar Airways, Virgin Australia, Lufthansa, Finnair, Japan Airlines, KLM, Korean Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, British Airways, Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Etihad Airways.