Known as the Oscars of the aviation world, the World Airline Awards are handed out annually by Skytrax, the leading global authority on airline and airport service quality. Ratings are based on the world’s largest passenger satisfaction survey, which was held from August 2016 to May 2017 with online voting in English, Spanish and Chinese.

Passengers from more than 100 countries took part, and almost 20 million questionnaires were submitted. The survey covered 320 airlines worldwide and evaluated almost 50 indicators across ground and airport services, on-board product and cabin service.

Aeroflot participated this year for the first time as a 4-Star Airline, having become the first Russian airline to gain this status from Skytrax in 2016. 4-Star Airline status places Aeroflot firmly among the global elite alongside carriers such as Lufthansa, Emirates, Air France-KLM and BA.

“Being named Best Airline in Eastern Europe for a sixth time is a great honour and recognition” said Vitaly Saveliev, CEO of Aeroflot. “All of our triumphs are due first and foremost to effective management and the hard work of all of our staff, who work as a single team united to achieve our goals. We keep the bar high, but we intend to raise it even higher. Our goal is to become the Best Airline in Europe, which will mean even more outstanding service for our passengers and a qualitatively new global status for Aeroflot”.