The largest Japanese airline and Star Alliance member becomes a 5-star airline. This is the third Star Alliance Airline joining this exclusive rating. Singapore Airlines and ASIANA Airlines from South Korea are also 5-star airlines – and now joined by All Nippon Airlines, known as ANA.
In the latest Skytrax Airline Star Rating review, Japan’s largest airline, ANA All Nippon Airways has been elevated to the exclusive 5-star airline rating, reflecting the high quality of airport and onboard product and service standards of ANA, All Nippon Airways.
The exclusive, top-tier 5-star rating is only awarded to airlines achieving the highest quality performance, and importantly, this focuses on the airline’s ability to deliver this on a consistent basis. ANA today becomes the seventh member of a select group of 5-Star airlines joining Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Hainan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, and Singapore Airlines.
“We have worked closely to monitor and assess the ANA Quality improvement across both front-line staff service and product areas during the past 2 years, and we are delighted today to be announcing their upgrade to the very exclusive group of 5-star aAirlines,” said Edward Plaisted of Skytrax. “With any star ranking upgrade, Skytrax put a lot of trust in an airline to maintain and develop quality levels, and we have every confidence that the high standards being achieved by ANA can be both maintained and strengthened as we look ahead.”
“The real determinant behind ANA’s success in achieving this 5-star airline rating is their front-line staff, in the airport environment, and onboard their flights. These ANA staff deliver a truly 5-star level of customer service – efficient, consistent, gracious, and with a genuine smile,” added Plaisted.
ANA’s President & CEO, Mr. Shinichiro Ito, comments: “ANA Group aims to become Asia’s no. 1 airline for customer satisfaction under our mid-term business strategy, and achieving 5-star status by fiscal year 2012 was an important target for us. Only 6 other airlines have achieved 5-star status and, as the first Japanese airline to achieve this stature, we are extremely proud of this accomplishment. As an airline providing an extensive range of services, we are continuously thinking about ways in which we can improve our customer offer and build the value of the ANA brand. We have worked hard to improve the quality of our products and services, both on the ground and in the air, and I’m delighted that SKYTRAX has recognized this accomplishment. SKYTRAX has an extremely high opinion of not only our products, including our aircraft and our in-flight comfort, but also of the impeccable service levels provided by our frontline staff.”
The Airline Star Rating program was introduced by SKYTRAX in 1999, and provides the professional, global system that rates front-line product and service quality for the world airline industry. Skytrax applies star rating levels from a lowest score of 1-star, through to the exclusive 5-star airline rating.
A 5-star airline rating represents “ultimate” quality recognition and approval, which is only awarded to airlines that achieve an exceptional front-line quality performance. The 5-star airline rating recognizes airlines at the forefront of product innovation, that sets quality benchmarks and trends that are often followed by other carriers. The airline rating systems assess the standard of an airline’s product and service delivery quality, using more than 800 assessment categories, applied across both the onboard and airport environments.
On the ground, airline website/online operations, ticketing, check-in, security, lounges, boarding, departures, transfer, arrivals, and branding are all assessed, with prime importance given to all “touchpoints” involved in final service delivery to the customer. Onboard assessment includes a detailed assessment across all areas of onboard product, staff service techniques and efficiency, and associated aspects of staff service.
Consistency of the airline’s product and service is a major factor in the 5-star airline award – consistency standards for the quality and consistency of aircraft cabin seating, onboard IFE standards, onboard catering, and associated product. An airline offering less than 80% fleet-wide product consistency will not be able to reach the 5-star airline requirements.
All Nippon Airways is the eighth largest airline in the world by revenues (2011) and the largest in Japan by passenger numbers (2011). Founded in 1952, it flies today to 80 domestic and international cities in a fleet of 233 aircraft serving a network of 171 routes.
ANA has 33,000 employees and operates about 1,000 flights a day. In 2011, it carried 43 million passengers and generated revenues of US$17.1 billion.
ANA has been a core member of Star Alliance since 1999 and launched a joint-venture with United Airlines on trans-Pacific and Asia routes in April 2011; ANA launched a joint-venture with Lufthansa on Japan-Europe routes in October 2011. ANA has more than 24 million members who belong to its Frequent Flyer Program (ANA Mileage Club). ANA is the launch customer for the world’s newest and most advanced passenger aircraft, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
