(Last Updated On: June 21, 2017)

The new rankings of the leading consumer aviation website, Skytrax are out for the year 2017 and “THE QATAR AIRWAYS” is succeeded to get the first position as the Best Airline in the World this year, lacking behind all the competitors.

On Tuesday, The Gulf-based Carrier has achieved this honor in the World Airline Award at the 2017 Paris Air Show.

Qatar Airways has got the 1st position and not a single US carrier is in the top 25 Airlines in the world this year but 2017 has introduced a new No. 1 to us.

Qatar Airways had replaced the previous year’s winner i.e. Emirates that has fallen to the No. 4 spot. And the 2nd spot is occupied by the Singapore Airlines and ANA All Nippon Airways is succeeded in holding the 3rd position in the new ranking of Skytrax. The 5th rank goes to Cathay Pacific which is followed by EVA Air, Lufthansa, Etihad Airways, Hainan Airlines and Garuda Indonesia.

Qatar Airways has achieved 3 more titles which include: World’s Best Business Class, Best First Class Airline Lounge and the Best Airline in the Middle East.

Coming to the US carriers, DELTA AIR LINES is considering being the best airline. But as per the new ranking, it came in at No. 32 which has improved its position from the previous year by 3 spots.

ALASKA AIRLINES: The carrier shows the most unexpected results from the last year in the top 100 airlines i.e. improvement with 24 spots; from position 60 in the last year to rank 36 this year.

JETBLUE: The carrier also shows a good amount of improvement i.e. moving to 39th spot from No. 53 in 2016.

VIRGIN AMERICA: The biggest drop was witnessed with Virgin America which fell down to No.43 spot this year as in 2016, it was at 25th position, a huge drop of 18 spots.

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: The airline shows improvement from the previous year by going up 12 spots. (From No. 66 to No. 54 in 2017)

AMERICAN AIRLINES: This carrier goes up 3 spots to No. 74.

UNITED AIRLINES: the carrier goes down by 10 spots to No. 68.

HAWAIIAN AIRLINES: It goes down by 14 spots to No.86.

AMERICAN EAGLE: The airline shows a drop of 3 spots and occupies the No. 87 spot.

Talking about the other airlines, ‘Air New Zealand’ did not make it to the top 10 and dropped two places in it ranking from 2016.

This was the fourth time when Qatar Airways has got the first rank in this listing in the past 10 consecutive years. Qatar Airline has been chosen as the best airline in 2015 also plus in 2011 and 2012 for two consecutive times too.

For Qatar Airways, this award comes as a bright spot as the carrier is going through a difficult period.

Firstly, the airline got affected by the U.S. ban on large carry-on electronics which let the airline face disadvantage against competitors who are unaffected by the ban.

Secondly, the diplomatic spat between Qatar and nearby Middle East nations has forced it to scrap flights to Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia among others. As a result, these nations have closed off their air-spaces to flights from Qatar.

In North America, ‘Air Canada’ has achieved the title for “Best Airline in North America.” And overal, it got the 29th place in the ranking.

The Skytrax awards are one of the several annual consumer-focused rankings covering the airline industry. Skytrax also explains its rankings methodology by stating the World Airline Awards as “the world’s largest, annual airline passenger satisfaction survey.” And the results are based on more than 19.87 million surveys. These particular ranking are for the survey period from August 2016 to May 2017. And the survey conducted includes the participation of travelers of 105 nationalities and over 325 airlines were included in the survey.

As per the new list of Skytrax, the following is the list of top 20 Airlines of 2017:

No. 1. Qatar Airways

No. 2. Singapore Airlines

No. 3. All Nippon Airways (ANA)

No. 4. Emirates

No. 5. Cathay Pacific

No. 6. EVA Air

No. 7. Lufthansa

No. 8. Etihad Airways

No. 9. Hainan Airlines

No. 10. Garuda Indonesia

No. 11. Thai Airways

No. 12. Turkish Airlines

No. 13. Virgin Australia

No. 14. Swiss International Air Lines

No. 15. Qantas Airways

No. 16. Japan Airlines

No. 17. Austrian Airlines

No. 18. Air France

No. 19. Air New Zealand

No. 20. Asiana Airlines