SunExpress has been named the World’s Best Leisure Airline at the prestigious World Airline Awards, held at the historic Langham Hotel in London.

It is the first time in the awards history that the Antalya based carrier, a joint venture between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, has been voted by customers as the World’s Best Leisure Airline after many years of featuring in the top 10 global leisure airlines.

Max Kownatzki, CEO of SunExpress said: “We are thrilled to be recognized by our customers by winning this prestigious award. We always put our customers at the heart of what we do, and we work hard to deliver the very best experience possible to them at every touchpoint, every day. Achieving this great success at the World Airline Awards after two of the most challenging years for the aviation industry is testament for our efforts. The fact that the award is based on the direct feedback from passengers is gratifying and a wonderful recognition for our great team. My heartfelt thanks goes to our valued guests and every member of our industrious and diligent team, who represent SunExpress with the utmost professionalism and passion every day. We will continue to listen carefully to our customers and to invest in our product and services, both on the ground and in the air.”

Edward Plaisted of Skytrax said: “We congratulate SunExpress on being voted by travellers as the World’s Best Leisure Airline. This recognition is a fantastic success for SunExpress not only in terms of delivering an enjoyable customer experience but doing this in what has been the most challenging of times for many airlines as the world emerges from the pandemic.”

Skytrax classify a leisure airline using combination of considerations including route network, market and seasonality, passenger demographics, onboard product and service systems, and airport service factors.

THE 2022 WORLD AIRLINE AWARDS

The World Airline Awards are wholly independent and impartial, 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 determine the award winners. The awards are referred to by media around the world as “the Oscars of the aviation industry”.

The online customer survey operated from September 2021 to August 2022, together with invitations sent to previous year respondents in the survey database. The customer survey is provided in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Chinese. Over 100 customer nationalities participated in the 2021/2022 survey with 14.32 million eligible entries counted in the results. Survey entries are screened to identify IP and user information, with all duplicate, suspect or ineligible entries deleted. More than 300 airlines are featured in the final Award results.