• Home
• Operators & Brokers
• Qatar Airways Wins Airline of the Year at the 2014 Air Transport News Awards

Qatar Airways Wins Airline of the Year at the 2014 Air Transport News Awards

18/03/2014 by Aviation Times

Qatar Airways Group proudly took home two awards at the 2014 Air Transport News Awards, held this week in Istanbul, Turkey, at the Çırağan Palace Kempinski Hotel. In addition to Qatar Airways winning Airline of the Year, Doha International Airport was also honoured with Airport of the Year 10-30 Million Passengers.

Winners were chosen by a combination of more than 4,200 votes from Air Transport News readers and the verdict of a jury of internationally known industry experts.  The jury, many of whom hold executive positions in the air transport industry, carefully examined the profile of each of the finalists in each of the 14 categories before reaching its final verdict.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker, expressed his delight on the news saying: “We are pleased to be recognised by Air Transport News and are proud of this accomplishment. For us, the awards clearly reflect the confidence of our passengers for the product and service that we offer. It is also a testament to the hard work of our staff who constantly strive to deliver consistent world-class service to our customers on air and on the ground.”

Qatar Airways Chief Commercial Officer, Marwan Koleilat, who personally accepted the awards on behalf of Qatar Airways Group, said: “We are greatly honoured to be selected by our passengers as Airline of the Year. Their acknowledgement of our hard work and dedication to providing our five-star product and services to everyone that steps on one of our aircraft is greatly appreciated and strengthens our belief that we are providing our customers with exactly what they want and need when they choose to travel. Our passengers are also benefiting from our expanded network through the oneworld alliance, providing them with more travel options.”

At the same event the oneworld alliance of which Qatar Airways is a partner, also won Best Alliance for an eighth time.

CEO Bruce Ashby said: “oneworld is delighted to receive this honour from Air Transport News Airline Alliance of the Year – the unprecedented eighth “best alliance” award now in oneworld’s hands from across the world’s leading industry award schemes.  It comes at a particularly exciting time for oneworld, as we welcome on board two more great airlines at the end of this month, in TAM and US Airways.”

Dr Kostas Iatrou, Managing Director of Air Transport News said: “Air Transport News honours for the third consecutive year the leader companies in the major categories of the air transport industry elected based on a democratic procedure. I want to congratulate all the winners for their achievement.”

Qatar Airways was also recently named Best Business Class by Business Traveller readers in the United Kingdom and Best Middle East Airline by readers of Business Traveller, Asia-Pacific.

Qatar Airways has seen rapid growth in just 17 years of operations, to the point where it now flies a modern fleet of 129 aircraft to 136 key business and leisure destinations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the Americas.

Over the next few months, the network will grow further with Philadelphia, USA (April 2, 2014), Larnaca, Cyprus (April 29), Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport, Turkey (May 22, 2014), Edinburgh, Scotland (May 28, 2014), Miami, USA (June 10, 2014),  Haneda, Japan (June 18, 2014) and Dallas/Fort Worth, USA (July 1, 2014).

Qatar Airways Chief Commercial Officer, Marwan Koleilat, personally accepts the awards on behalf of Qatar Airways Group.

Source: Qatar Airways