The Aporia · New ‘world’s best airline’ crowned as Qantas fails to crack top 10

New ‘world’s best airline’ crowned as Qantas fails to crack top 10

Read the original at The Sydney Morning Herald ↗

Cite

APA MLA Chicago

Platt, C. (2026, September 18). New ‘world’s best airline’ crowned as Qantas fails to crack top 10. The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/new-world-s-best-airline-crowned-as-qantas-fails-to-crack-top-10-20260918-p60yhl.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

Quick Summary

Singapore Airlines has been named the world’s best airline at the 2026 World Airline Awards, surpassing Qatar Airways which previously held the title for two consecutive years. The rankings reflect a strong performance by Asian and Middle Eastern carriers; however, Australian carrier Qantas only managed to climb to 12th place this year after falling to 24th in 2024 due to various operational issues. Singapore Airlines also won awards for best economy class and catering service, while Qatar Airways took the new award for best onboard Wi-Fi.

Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-18, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

In the 2026 Skytrax World Airline Awards announced on September 18 in London, Singapore Airlines was crowned the world's best airline, surpassing Qatar Airways, which had previously held the title for two consecutive years. The awards are based on a global passenger satisfaction survey of over 25 million travelers. Asian and Middle Eastern carriers dominated the top spots, with only one European carrier—Air France-KLM—in the top ten; no US airlines made it into the rankings at all.

Qantas, Australia's national airline, ranked 12th, up two places from its previous ranking of 14th but still far below its historical performance where it consistently placed in the top five. In recent years, Qantas faced significant challenges, including a scandal involving illegal staff layoffs and selling tickets for cancelled flights, which caused it to drop to 24th place in 2024.

Meanwhile, Air Canada was named the best airline in North America for the second consecutive year and the tenth time since 2010. The company also received additional accolades including Best Business Class Lounge Dining for its Signature Suite in Toronto and Best Economy On Board Catering in North America.

Written for “Best Airlines Rankings 2026” on 2026-10-16, grounded in this article and the 3 other(s) covering the same event.

Compared with similar articles

This article reads unscored and hedges 12% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.

Singapore Airlines takes world’s best carrier crown from Qatar Airways same event · 100%

South China Morning Post

⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 5 📰 publisher trust 64

“Both articles report on Singapore Airlines winning the World's Best Airline award, dethroning Qatar Airways in the same Skytrax rankings announcement.”

World’s best airlines for 2026 unveiled — with no US carriers in the top 10 same event · 95%

New York Post · 0.86 cosine similarity

⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 16 📰 publisher trust 67

“Both articles report on the 2026 World Airline Awards ceremony held on September 18, 2026, where Singapore Airlines was crowned as the world’s best airline.”

Air Canada Named Best Airline in North America at the 2026 Skytrax World Airline Awards different event · 95%

Toronto Star

⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 4 📰 publisher trust 63

“The articles describe different airlines winning awards at the 2026 Skytrax World Airline Awards, not the same specific incident.”

How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted

sentences that state something as happening or true

Uncertain

12%

2 of 17 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")

Leaning

not political

takes no side on a contested political question

Publisher signals

61/100

The Sydney Morning Herald's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.

Outlets on this story

Other

Same framing elsewhere

articles that frame the event the way this one does

Analyzed 2026-09-18 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability

Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

The Sydney Morning Herald · 3905 article(s) · 10 correction(s) detected

Running correction rate · 10 correction(s)

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Who wrote this

Craig Platt

1 article(s) here · 0 carrying a prediction

The only article under this byline in the corpus.

Topics

Qatar Qatar Airways Singapore Airlines Skytrax Turkish Airlines

Subjects

Qatar Airways ORG · 5× Singapore Airlines ORG · 5× Skytrax ORG · 4× Qatar GPE · 3× Australia GPE · 2× Turkish Airlines ORG · 2× Asian NORP · 1× Frequent Flyer ORG · 1× Middle Eastern NORP · 1× Qantas ORG · 1×

Narrative

However, the airline has continued to climb back from its nadir in 2024, where it fell to 24th amid a series of scandals including illegally sacking staff, selling fares for flights that had already been cancelled and criticisms over the availability of rewards seats for Frequent Flyer members.

framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-18

2026-09-18 · The Sydney Morning Herald

New ‘world’s best airline’ crowned as Qantas fails to crack top 10 · assertive framing

Claims (17 extracted, 2 hedged)

Qatar Airways has lost the title of world’s best airline at the 2026 World Airline Awards, in a year when the highly regarded Middle East carrier has been disrupted by conflict in its region. asserted

carrier → lose → region

Qatar was pipped by Singapore Airlines for the Airline of the Year, which took out the No.1 spot after the Gulf carrier won the previous two years. asserted

carrier → pip → years

Qatar Airways took second place – the position held by Singapore Airlines last year. asserted

Airways → take → Airlines

It’s the sixth time Singapore Airlines has taken out the top award, a feat surpassed only by Qatar, which has won nine times. asserted

which → ’ → times

Qantas, meanwhile, climbed two places from 14th to 12th this year, still far below its historical results where it consistently ranked in the top five, including as recently as 2022. asserted

it → climb → 2022

that → continue → members

As usual, Asian and Middle Eastern airlines dominated the top 10, with Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific in third and Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) in fourth. asserted

airlines → dominate → fourth

Rounding the top five was Turkish Airlines, which started flights between Australia and Istanbul via Asia in 2024 and plans non-stop flights between Australia and Turkey next year. asserted

which → round → Australia

Singapore Airlines also won the award for world’s best economy class and best economy class catering, and was runner-up business class (behind Qatar Airways) and first class (behind Air France). asserted

Airlines → win → France

The airline reported record revenue of $6.28 billion for the first quarter of this financial year, even as it slumped to an $83 million net loss due to conflict in the Middle East causing fuel prices to surge. asserted

prices → report → East

This year a new award, for best onboard Wi-Fi, went to Qatar Airways. asserted

award → go → Airways

It was the only category in which US airlines dominated, taking all other slots in the top five behind Qatar (Delta Air Lines, United, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue). asserted

airlines → dominate → Qatar

The World Airline Awards are based on online customer-satisfaction surveys conducted by consultancy firm Skytrax, with passengers from 100 countries taking part and more than 350 airlines featuring in the final results. asserted

airlines → base → results

Skytrax claims the awards are based on the world’s largest airline satisfaction survey. uncertain

awards → claim → survey

Some aviation experts have questioned Skytrax’s methodology and the lack of transparency in its awards process. asserted

experts → question → process

According to some reports, Skytrax has refused to answer questions related to how its survey system works or even what the business actually does. uncertain

business → accord → what

Airlines, however, are quick to trumpet the results when favourable. asserted

Airlines → trumpet → results