Ethiopian Airlines wins The Best Airlines in Africa at SKYTRAX

Ethiopian Airlines won the SKYTRAX World Airline Award for The Best Airlines in Africa at the Paris Air Show on June 20, 2017.

Skytrax is the most respected global air transport rating organization that conducts the world’s largest annual airline passenger satisfaction survey where customers make their own personal choices as to which airline they consider to be the best.

While receiving the airlines third award; two for Best Airline Staff in Africa; from the organization, Group CEO Ethiopian Airlines, Tewolde GebreMariam, remarked; “We are thrilled that Skytrax, the most reputed global airline rating organization, has honored Ethiopian Airlines with The Best Airline in Africa award. I am very happy that Ethiopian has won the award as the Best Airline in Africa based on customer survey. This is a very strong testimony that in line with our vision 2025, our heavy investment in customer service, Human Resource Development, modern fleet, infrastructure and ICT has resulted in the desired customer delight which is expressed by the strong vote of confidence in the global survey. It will motivate us to continue to invest time, energy and money on the four pillars of our vision 2025 with sharp focus in customer service across the value chain”.

Read: Ethiopian Airlines operate historic all-women flight

“I would like to thank Skytrax for this recognition and our valued customers for their strong vote of confidence. As always, we shall continue to work hard to exceed your expectations and provide you the best possible travel experience every time you fly with us. I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleagues at Ethiopian for their exceptional commitment and hard work to keep our airline flying high in the skies,” GebreMariam said.

Airbus A350 XWB water cannon salute Photo: Ethiopian Airlines/Twitter

Results and voting

According to the survey results:

• Air Canada is the best airline in North America
• Etihad has the world’s best first class, world’s best first class seat, and world’s best first class onboard catering
• Saudia is the world’s most improved airline
• Garuda Indonesia has the world’s best cabin crew
• Singapore Airlines has the world’s best business class seat
• Thai Airways has the world’s best economy class

The winners are based solely on public voting, with votes from nearly 20 million people from 105 countries being counted. The voting took place between August 2016 and May 2017. Airlines were allowed to promote voting, so it is suspected there’s a high correlation between the airlines that tried to “get out the vote,” and those that actually won.

Read: Ethiopian Airlines wins Airline of the Year Award, for the fifth year in a row

To account for the different sizes of airlines, they also take a weighted approach to the results:

“Customers nominated their favorite airline or airline they considered to be best, and ranked their satisfaction (1 to 5 scales) for aspects of the travel experience (see below), across both the airport and onboard environments. Data weighting was applied to provide equity when evaluating airlines of different size. Any weighting uses passenger numbers for airlines featured in the Survey.”

About Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines (Ethiopian) is the fastest growing Airline in Africa. In its seven decades of operation, Ethiopian has become one of the continent’s leading carriers, unrivalled in efficiency and operational success.

Ethiopian commands the lion’s share of the pan-African passenger and cargo network operating the youngest and most modern fleet to more than 95 international destinations across five continents. Ethiopian fleet includes ultra-modern and environmentally friendly aircraft such as Airbus A350, Boeing 787, Boeing 777-300ER, Boeing 777-200LR, Boeing 777-200 Freighter, Bombardier Q-400 double cabin with an average fleet age of five years. In fact, Ethiopian is the first airline in Africa to own and operate these aircraft.

Ethiopian is currently implementing a 15-year strategic plan called Vision 2025 that will see it become the leading aviation group in Africa with seven business centers: Ethiopian Domestic and Regional Airline; Ethiopian International Passenger Airline; Ethiopian Cargo; Ethiopian MRO; Ethiopian Aviation Academy; Ethiopian In-flight Catering Services; and Ethiopian Ground Service. Ethiopian is a multi-award winning airline registering an average growth of 25% in the past seven years.