Returning to the Langham Hotel London, and the first since Paris 2019, the Skytrax World Airlines Awards took place last Friday (23 September).

As the airline celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2022, Qatar Airways was named “Airline of the Year”, for an unprecedented seventh time.

The airline also took home three additional awards including World’s Best Business Class, World’s Best Business Class Lounge Dining, and Best Airline in the Middle East.

The award is something special for Akbar Al Baker, chairman of Qatar Airways.  In June of his year, at Passenger Terminal EXPO in Paris, Hamad International Airport, Doha, was named as the World’s Best Airport for the second year running.  Mr Al Baker is chairman of that too.

The event was created by Edward Plaisted 2001.  It is a global benchmark of airline excellence, and widely referred to as the Oscars of the airline industry.

Winners of Skytrax Awards are determined through an annual passenger survey. More than 300 airlines were evaluated between September 2021 and August 2022. More than 14 million people from 100 nationalities participated in this survey in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Chinese. the survey participants rated the airline's website, check-in and boarding procedures, cabin cleanliness, IFE, crew appearance and service, food quality, and seats comfort.

In all there were 69 awards with British Airways winning the Best Cabin Crew in Europe and Best Airline Staff Service in Europe and for the airline that claims to have invented the concept Virgin Atlantic taking the World's Best Premium Economy Class category, and (surprise –surprise – they keep winning), Virgin offering the Best Business Class Lounge.

A mention must also  be made of Air Astana. It might not be an actual British airline (although 49% is owned by BAE Systems) for the last 17 years it has been headed by Peter Foster. Kazakhstan’s flag carrier took the prize for “Best Airline in Central Asia and CIS” for the tenth time and “Best Service in Central Asia and CIS” for the first time.

www.worldairlineawards.com/a-z-airline-awards-winners-2022