STAR ALLIANCE AGAIN VOTED BEST ALLIANCE AT SKYTRAX WORLD AIRLINE AWARDS

Star Alliance has claimed the Best Airline Alliance title at the Skytrax World Airline Awards for the third year running, with the Alliance's prestigious Los Angeles Loungeretaining the Best Airline Alliance Lounge Award for the fourth year in a row.

"Receiving the Best Alliance accolade from Skytrax for a third consecutive time is a significant achievement. It recognises our focus on improving the customer journey and providing a better digital alliance travel experience", said Jeffrey Goh, CEO Star Alliance. "I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our more than 700 million annual passengers for their continued loyalty to our 28 member airline network and acknowledge the work and professionalism of the more than 420,000 member airline employees, who deliver the alliance travel experience on a daily basis".

The base of its digital transformation is the Star Alliance Digital Services Platform (DSP), which was launched earlier this year. It is the first step to an overall enhancement of digital and mobile services offered to customers travelling across the network. The DSP can connect digital services of one member airline or third-party and make it available to all members, enabling them to build it into their own customer-facing digital applications. The longer-term aim is to allow customers to use any member airline's website or mobile application to obtain all the information they need for travel on several Star Alliance member airlines.

Through DSP, United Airlines currently offers advance seat reservations on Singapore Airlines flights and Lufthansa provides baggage tracking information on journeys which include flights on other Star Alliance airlines. Additional features will be made available across the Alliance progressively.

The World Airline Awardswere introduced in 1999 to provide a customer satisfaction study that was truly global. Travellers across the world vote in the largest airline passenger satisfaction survey to decide the award winners.

Edward Plaisted, CEO of Skytrax said: "Star Alliance can be very proud of its continued popularity and support amongst its frequent flyer members. The flagship lounge in Los Angeles continues to be a favourite amongst survey respondents".

The online survey operated from August 2017 to May 2018, together with invitations sent to previous year respondents in the survey database (total 24.45 million customers). Customer survey forms were offered in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Chinese. The highest nationality increase in the 2018 survey was Chinese customers with an additional 3.5 million entries.

In total, 17 Star Alliance member carriers also received a combination of 49 individual and regional awards, with the following five carriers ranked in the top 10 in the Best Airline Category: Singapore Airlines (1), ANA (3), EVA Air (5), Lufthansa (7) and THAI (10).

The Star Alliance network was established in 1997 as the first truly global airline alliance to offer worldwide reach, recognition and seamless service to the international traveller. Its acceptance by the market has been recognized by numerous awards, including the Air Transport World Market Leadership Award and Best Airline Alliance by both Business Traveller Magazine and Skytrax. The member airlinesare: Adria Airways, Aegean Airlines, Air Canada, Air China, Air India, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, Avianca, Avianca Brasil, Brussels Airlines, Copa Airlines, Croatia Airlines, EGYPTAIR, Ethiopian Airlines, EVA Air, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, SWISS, TAP Air Portugal, THAI, Turkish Airlines, and United. Overall, the Star Alliance network currently offers more than 18,800 daily flightsto 1,317 airports in 193 countries. Further connecting flights are offered by Star Alliance Connecting Partner, Juneyao Airlines.