The airline of the year has been announced at the Skytrax awards, held at the Farnborough airshow this week. The winner was Cathay Pacific!
The airline from Hong Kong beat off much competition to take the top slot in Skytrax annual awards. Pictured here is Ivan Chu with the 2014 award.
'Of all the sellers, Cathay were the best performer across all types of travel,' Skytrax's CEO Edward Plaisted said to the media at the show, 'Some airliners were very good in economy, others in luxury, but [Cathay Pacific Airways was] top or near the top in all categories,' he said.
'The World’s Best Airline award is particularly important to us because it was decided by the votes of close to 19 million travellers from around the world. Thank you to everyone who voted for us!' Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Ivan Chu said in a release.
Chu also said the company 'will not rest on [its] laurels.' 'We will continue working to provide a superior travel experience that will make the people of Hong Kong proud,' he said.
Qatar Airways took second place in Skytrax's Airline of the Year list. Singapore Airlines, Emirates, and Turkish Airlines came in third, fourth, and fifth, respectively.
ANA All Nippon Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Asiana Airlines, Etihad Airways and Lufthansa rounded out the top ten in descending order.
British airlines are falling far behind the competition and there was surprise from the North American region when the major player American airlines were outperformed by both Air Canada and WestJet in SkyTrax's list of Best Airlines in North America.
Air Canada ranked number one in that list, followed by WestJet and Virgin America.
They were followed by Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Porter Airlines, jetBlue Airways, Alaska Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and American Eagle Airlines, respectively.
Similarly, the US didn't make it into Skytrax's Best Airports in the World 2014 list, which was published earlier this year.
Singapore Changi Airport took the number-one spot in that list. The only North American airport to be included was Vancouver International Airport, ranked at number nine.