Travel website, AirHelp, has released its latest airline rankings for 2018.
Now in its sixth year, the rankings are based on an AirHelp Score (out of 10) which compares each airline with three different criteria to inform you how they perform against their competition.
These include the airline’s on-time performance, its quality of service and its claims processing, based on thousands of data points and reviews from around the world.
Based on these criteria, Qatar Airways was named as the best airline in the world with a score of (9.08), followed by Germany’s Lufthansa (8.57) and the UAE’s Ethihad Airways (8.43).
South African Airways (SAA) was also named as one of the top ten airlines in the world (5th – 8.31), scoring relatively highly for its claims processing and on-time performance.
This is likely to be good news for the struggling airline, with Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan recently announcing that he would be merging SAA, SA Express and Mango as a way to rationalise their routes and help cut down on costs.
Other notable inclusions in the top ten include Singpaore Airlines (4th – 8.33), Qantas (8th – 8.12), and Virgin Atlantic (8.04).
You can find the full top 10 and their respective scores detailed below:
| Ranking | Airline | Location | On-time performance | Quality of Service | Claims processing | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Qatar Airways | Qatar | 8.9 | 9.5 | 8.9 | 9.08 |
| 2 | Lufthansa | Germany | 7.6 | 9.5 | 8.6 | 8.57 |
| 3 | Etihad Airways | UAE | 8.6 | 9.3 | 7.5 | 8.43 |
| 4 | Singapore Airlines | Singapore | 8.5 | 9.8 | 6.8 | 8.33 |
| 5 | South African Airways | South Africa | 8.5 | 7.8 | 8.7 | 8.31 |
| 6 | Austrian Airlines | Austria | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.9 | 8.29 |
| 7 | Aegean Airlines | Greece | 9.0 | 8.3 | 7.4 | 8.19 |
| 8 | Qantas | Australia | 8.9 | 8.0 | 7.5 | 8.12 |
| 9 | Air Malta | Malta | 8.6 | 6.5 | 9.1 | 8.09 |
| 10 | Virgin Atlantic | United Kingdom | 8.2 | 8.0 | 7.9 | 8.04a |
