THAI Airways defends world’s 10th best airline title, Bangkok Airways named world’s best regional

Airline chief executives from all over the world gathered at the 19^th World Airline Awards Event held at Paris Air Show yesterday (June 18) to receive their accolades voted for by customers.

This year it was Qatar Airways who scooped “the Oscar of the aviation industry” and was named the World’s Best Airline, while last year's winner Singapore Airlines came second and THAI Airways confirmed its status of Thailand's best, finishing in top 10.

The World’s Top 10 Airlines of 2019 are as follows (last year's results in brackets):

1.  Qatar Airways, Qatar (2);
2.  Singapore Airlines, Singapore (1);
3.  ANA All Nippon Airways, Japan (3);
4.  Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong (6);
5.  Emirates, UAE (4);
6.  EVA Air, Taiwan (5);
7.  Hainan Airlines, China (8);
8.  Qantas Airways, Australia (11);
9.  Lufthansa, Germany (7);
10.  Thai Airways, Thailand (10).

After four previous victories in 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2017, Qatar Airways became the first airline to have won the top spot five times in total.

The 2019 World Airline Awards also brought heartening news for Thai aviation, with THAI Airways and Bangkok Airways ending in global top 10 and top 20 in a whole row of various secondary nominations. The most important of these was Bangkok Airways (17^th best globally) being crowned as World’s Best Regional Airline.

In other categories AirAsia (20^th best globally) was named World’s Best Low-Cost Airline with AirAsia X coming fifth in this nomination and second among World's Best Long Haul Low-Cost. The two budget carriers came as number one and number two among Best Low-Cost Airlines in Asia.

The Best Cabin Crew Award this year went to Singapore Airlines, while THAI Airways and Bangkok Airways both showing impressive results and finishing fourth and 15^th globally.

Passengers looking for cleanliness and presentation of seat areas, tables and cabin panels should pick EVA Air, the winner of this year's World’s Best Airline Cabin Cleanliness Award (Bangkok Airways and THAI Airways made the top 20 in this category as well, finishing 18^th and 19^th, respectively).

Best Airline Inflight Entertainment, according to Skytrax, should be expected on Emirates' flights (Thai Airways ranked 14^th globally) while Best Airline Staff Service is provided by South African Airways (Thai Airways was named best in Asia).

World’s Best Airport Services Award was won by ANA All Nippon Airways, while THAI Airways came second best globally and Bangkok Airways came 13^th.

World’s Best First Class Award went to Singapore Airlines (THAI Airways ranked 13^th), World’s Best Business Class was found on Qatar's flights (THAI Airways ranked seventh), World’s Best Economy Class was provided by Japan Airlines (Thai Airways ranked fourth).

The World Airline Awards winning airlines are voted for by customers. Over 21 million travellers across the globe took part in the 2018/2019 airline passenger satisfaction survey by Skytrax to decide the winners. The survey was conducted from September 2018 to May 2019 in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Chinese languages.