Air NZ picks up industry accolades

Photo / Brett Phibbs

Air New Zealand has soared past Qantas at the annual world airline awards.

Air New Zealand climbed from eighth-best in the world at last year's awards to fifth this year and was also named best Australia-Pacific airline in Hamburg, Germany.

Its rival across the Tasman, Qantas, dropped to seventh place, down from sixth last year. In 2008, it was rated the world's third-best airline.

South Korea's Asiana Airlines won the overall title, after being third last year.

The annual awards by Skytrax are based on surveys of 17.9 million passengers of 100 different nationalities over 10 months to April.

Passengers rated airlines on customer service, comfort of seating, quality of food, lounges and cabin crew.

Air New Zealand also won an award for staff service in the Australia/Pacific region.

Yesterday, it was separately named best airline at the 2010 Which? Magazine awards in Britain, which were judged on customer service.

Air New Zealand received a value-for-money rating of 89 per cent, compared with the industry average of 66 per cent, and 98 per cent of passengers said they would recommend the airline to a friend.

And it has picked up more global industry accolades overnight - two Skytrax awards for the best Australia/Pacific airline and the staff service excellence award for the region.

- NZPA