Qantas drops out of top 20 airline rankings as world’s best named

Qantas has dropped out of a ranking of the top 20 best airlines in the world a month after it agreed to a $100m fine for allegedly selling flights to customers which did not exist.

In this year’s world airline awards by Skytrax, Qantas dropped seven places, from 17th to 24th, while Qatar Airways was named the world’s best airline ahead of Singapore in second place.

Fiji Airways was named the best airline in Australia and the Pacific for the second time, while Qantas was named as having the best business class, best premium economy and being the cleanest airline in the regional ranking.

Qantas was rated the second-best airline in the world in 2005 and 2006, before tumbling to 15th in 2012 and 2017.

A Qantas spokesperson said Qantas had been “listening to our customers and our people and have been acting on this feedback with significant investment already underway”.

“We want our customers to feel the difference from the changes that we have put in place and, in recent months, we have seen customer satisfaction levels improve,” the spokesperson said.

The Skytrax result comes as the airline fell 22 places in a separate analysis of the strength of Australian brands earlier this year due to “reputational issues that generated negative media coverage”, Brand Finance said.

The former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce resigned last September after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced it would take legal action against the airline over allegations it sold tickets to more than 8,000 flights it had already cancelled in its system.

Last month, Qantas agreed to a $100m fine and a repayment of $20m to customers in a settlement with the ACCC – the largest settlement for a corporate penalty the watchdog has ever agreed to.

A week after Joyce’s resignation, the high court upheld a finding that Qantas had illegally outsourced 1,700 jobs during the pandemic.

The same month, the new CEO, Vanessa Hudson, issued an apology to customers after witnesses at a Senate inquiry into Australia’s airline industry accused the carrier of being “aggressive” to deal with and engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.

The chairman, Richard Goyder, later announced he would retire before Qantas’s annual general meeting in late 2024.

In February, the company handed down a $1.25bn half-year pretax profit in February – 40% higher than the last half-year trading period before the pandemic upended travel.

The airline also unveiled long-awaited changes to its frequent flyer program in April, calling the changes the biggest expansion it has made to the program in its 35-year history.

Qantas partner Jetstar also fell in the rankings this year, from 69th to 75th. However, it was named the second best long haul, low-cost airline worldwide, second to Scoot.

The Skytrax rankings were based on thousands of passenger surveys between September 2023 and May 2024, with customers of more than 100 nationalities taking part.