Qatar Airways Named World’s Best Airline in 2019

Qatar Airways has been named the world’s best airline in the Skytrax 2019 World Airline Awards.

The result is based on over 21 million votes cast by members of the public between September 2018 and May 2019. The surveys were available in English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Russian.

Based in Doha, Qatar Airways is a member of the Oneworld alliance and flies to five Australian cities; Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra. As a Oneworld airline, Qantas Frequent Flyer members can earn and redeem points on Qatar Airways flights.

Qatar Airways is world-renowned for its Qsuite Business class product, which also won “best business class” in this year’s Skytrax awards. The Qatar Airways Qsuites feature sliding doors and adjoining seats can be adjusted to create a double bed in the sky – or even a shared space for a family of four. In Australia, Qatar Airways currently flies the Qsuites to Sydney and Canberra. The product will also appear temporarily on the Perth-Doha route from September until December this year when the A380 is removed from service.

If you’d like to redeem Qantas points to fly in Qatar Airways First Class, have a look for seats on the Perth-Doha route. Qatar Airways often has up to two First Class reward seats available when the Airbus A380 is being used on this route.

Other 2019 Skytrax award winners

Singapore Airlines, which was last year’s Skytrax winner, came second this year. Qantas, meanwhile, has climbed to 8^th place this year. Virgin Australia came in at number 25.

Here are the top 10 airlines for this year:

1. Qatar Airways
2. Singapore Airlines
3. ANA
4. Cathay Pacific
5. Emirates
6. EVA Air
7. Hainan Airlines
8. Qantas
9. Lufthansa
10. Thai Airways

Singapore Airlines took out the top prize for the world’s best cabin crew, while Philippine Airlines was voted “most improved”. Bangkok Airways, which is a codeshare partner of Qantas, was voted the best regional airline. And AirAsia won “best low-cost airline”, coming in ahead of Jetstar which took sixth place in the 2019 Skytrax awards.

Do you agree with these results? Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: 2019 Skytrax Worlds best Airline

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.