Virgin Australia is a big winner in the 2023 AirlineRatings.com Excellence Awards taking out the highly coveted Best Cabin Crew for the fifth year in a row and being named in the global Top Twenty Five at number seven.

JOIN: AirlineRatings.com YouTube Channel

GET: Accurate MH370 Information From AirlineRatings.com Newsletter

SEE: GT’s Radar Slams Netflix MH370 Doco

AirlineRatings.com the world’s only airline safety, product, and COVID rating website promotes excellence and innovation in the airline industry, and the pinnacle of these efforts is its Airline Excellence Awards.

Best Cabin Crew

AirlineRatings.com Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Thomas said, “Virgin Australia’s cabin crew treat every passenger as a special guest.”

“Their commitment to their passengers is outstanding and is a benchmark of what cabin service should be. And this applies to ground staff as well, where the standards are just as high.

Virgin Australia Group CEO, Jayne Hrdlicka said the awards reinforce the confidence guests have when choosing to fly Virgin Australia, with the airline delivering excellence in service and safety standards year in, year out.

“There is no doubt this achievement is down to our amazing people who are at the heart of everything we do. It reflects our commitment to delivering consistently outstanding service and the wonderful experiences our cabin crew team bring to life every time you step onboard,” she said.

“We’ve rebuilt the airline from the ground up and continued to invest in areas that truly matter to our guests, and I am incredibly proud this has once again positioned us as one of the top ten airlines globally in the AirlineRatings.com Airline Excellence Awards.

“This is a testament that our irreverent challenger spirit continues to resonate with travellers, and the future is incredibly bright for Virgin Australia,” she said.

For rankings, the editors of AirlineRatings.com, some of the most experienced and awarded, combine international industry and government audits, with another 11 key criteria that include: fleet age, passenger review ratings, investment rating, and key product offerings to arrive at a ranking.

“We are looking for leadership, airlines that innovate to make a real difference to the passenger experience, particularly in economy class,” Mr Thomas said.

For Virgin Australia that innovation is Economy X (below) and the airline has reconfigured the first three rows of the economy cabin on its Boeing 737 fleet to give passengers -for a fee - an additional three inches (7.6cms) of legroom.

Combined with exit row seating, this means one in five seats in its B737 economy cabin — 30 seats on a B737-800 —  are now branded, Economy X.

Economy X passengers also get preferred overhead locker space, priority boarding, and priority security screening.

In Business Class the airline has slashed fares by up to 60 per cent compared to its major competitor.