The Doha-based carrier nabbed the prestigious Airline of the Year title for 2024, having nudged out last year’s winner, Air New Zealand, for the top spot.

Qantas and Virgin Australia/Atlantic came 9th and 10th, respectively.

The judging panel, which consists of five editors, consider a range of criteria that include safety and product rating, fleet age, profitability, serious incidents, passenger reviews from several sources, innovation and forward fleet orders.

Between the judges there’s more than 100 years of industry experience.

“In our objective analysis Qatar Airways came out number one in many key areas although it was a very close scoring for the top 10,” AirlineRatings.com editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas said in a statement.

“The passenger reviews however scored Qatar Airways ahead of all airlines and its consistency and high standard of service delivery came through in the feedback.”

Coming in second on the Top 25 list is Korean Air followed by Cathay Pacific Airways.

Air New Zealand fell back to spot four while Emirates secured fifth place followed by Air France/ KLM, All Nippon Airways and Etihad Airways.

In 2023, both Qantas and Virgin Australia secured sixth and seventh spot, but this year they fell back to ninth and 10th spot respectively.

Meanwhile, Qatar Airways also picked up Best Business Class for the fifth year running and Best Catering and Air New Zealand won Best Economy Class.

Singapore Airlines won Best First Class, while Virgin Australia won Best Cabin Crew.

Best-in-Flight Entertainment and Best Premium Economy went to Emirates.

It is the ninth year that Emirates has won the entertainment awards. It was one of the first to introduce seat-back videos for economy passengers back in the early 1990s.

According to Airlineratings.com.au it has led the field ever since and today the system has 6,500 channels “making it a clear winner for Best Inflight Entertainment”.

Qantas picked up Best Lounges, while Etihad Airways picked up Best Environmental Airline for the third year running.

Qatar Airlines’ success comes as the group reported a strong financial performance for the first half of 2023/2024.

It reported a net profit of QAR 3.736 billion ($A1.537 billion) which represents an increase of 113.8 per cent compared to the same period last year 2022/2023. The Group’s total revenue for first half of fiscal year 2023/2024 increased to QAR 40.126 billion ($A16 billion)), up 7.4 per cent compared to the same period last year 2022/2023.