Emirates won big at this year’s World Travel Awards, taking home the World’s Leading Airline – First Class, World’s Leading Airline – Brand, World’s Leading Airline – Inflight Entertainment and World’s Leading Airline – Rewards Program awards. The airline also won the Best Airline App Worldwide and Best Airline App in the Middle East titles at the World Travel Tech Awards 2024.
The world’s largest international airline is on a roll this year, recently winning top honors at the ULTRAs 2024, Telegraph Travel, and Forbes Travel Guide’s Air Travel Awards. Emirates also ranked as a 2025 APEX World Class Airline.
The World Travel Awards is one of the industry’s most prestigious events. It acknowledges, rewards and celebrates excellence across all sectors of the global travel and tourism industry. In addition, the World Travel Tech Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in travel technology. The ceremony was held at the Savoy Palace in Madeira, Portugal. David Quinto, Emirates’ country manager in Portugal accepted the four World’s Leading Airline awards on behalf of Emirates.
Emirates launches several industry-first concepts
Emirates focuses on consistently delivering the best service, continually investing to elevate the onboard experience, and launching industry-first concepts to expand the ecosystem of loyalty, including:
Multi-billion dollar retrofit program
Emirates rolled out 36 fully refurbished aircraft (26 A380s and 10 Boeing 777s) with new interiors that include highly lauded Premium Economy as part of its multi-billion dollar retrofit program.
Unique first-class experience
Emirates’ first-class experience continues to set the industry benchmark for excellence with fully enclosed private suites, dine on demand service, and A380 Shower Spa. The airline recently enhanced its wine-in-the-sky experience with the launch of L’art du vin, a bespoke wine course for cabin crew to serve customers even better with acclaimed wines and rare vintages.
Leading inflight entertainment
In addition, Emirates recently expanded its already vast inflight entertainment catalog, collaborating with Spotify, the world’s most popular audio-streaming subscription service, to offer customers a wide array of podcasts and playlists in the sky.
Emirates Skywards
Meanwhile, Emirates Skywards’ 33 million members worldwide earn better and spend better with more than 200 brand partnerships, ranging from airlines, hotels, and car rentals to financial, leisure and lifestyle brands.
Skywards attracts more than 120,000 new members every month who redeem Miles on several rewards including flight tickets and upgrades on Emirates, flights with partner airlines, hotel stays, gift cards, hospitality at sporting and cultural events, tours, and money-can’t-buy experiences.
Cutting-edge digital experiences
Emirates also continues to enhance its digital experiences and integrate new technologies to make the travel experience even more seamless for customers. Recognized for offering the best functionality, user experience and a range of features, the Emirates app offers customers real-time flight updates, baggage tracking, an airport map guide, a chance to explore all fleet cabins in 3D and the option to create bespoke playlists ahead of the flight.
Earlier this year, Emirates was ranked top 3 in an independent benchmarking report of airline websites by Catchpoint, where Emirates.com was recognized as the only website to fall within the recommended page load time of under 5 seconds.
