OREANDA-NEWS. Aeroflot – Russian Airlines has been awarded an official four-star quality and service ranking from the leading independent authority on airline quality, Skytrax.

The gala event was held at London’s prestigious The Savoy hotel. The Ceremony was hosted by Aeroflot’s CEO Vitaly Saveliev. Among the attendees were Russian Ambassador to UK Dr. Alexander Yakovenko, Manchester United Group Managing Director Richard Arnold, CEO of Skytrax Edward Plaisted and Aeroflot’s friends and partners.

Along with the continued recognition over recent years for its quality, the Aeroflot brand has also gone from strength to strength. Since 2013 the airline has been in a global partnership with Manchester United, as the Official Carrier for one of the biggest football clubs in the world. United ambassadors Bryan Robson and Denis Law, legends Gary Pallister and Jesper Blomqvist, as well as senior executives, attended the Skytrax awards ceremony in London to celebrate the Skystrax accolade.

Skytrax's rating comes as the result of a rigorous independent audit examining almost the complete list of areas of the airline's product and service offering, both on the ground and in the air. For travellers around the world, a Sktrax four star rating is a hallmark of quality that they can trust.

Aeroflot is regularly recognized for its outstanding customer service. Last year Aeroflot was recognized for the fourth time as Best Airline in Eastern Europe in the Skytrax World Airline Awards, the world’s largest airline passenger satisfaction survey. In December, Global Traveler magazine’s GT Tested Reader Survey also named Aeroflot Best Airline in Eastern Europe. The Cond? Nast Traveller Readers Choice awards named Aeroflot the 2016 Best Airline in Russia. Finally, in March Aeroflot won the Readers’ Choice award and CEO Vitaly Saveliev was named Leader of the Year 2016 at the prestigious Air Transport News Awards.

Aeroflot’s success is the result of a relentless focus on safety, on-time departures and arrivals and creating a customer service culture of the best international standards with a dose of traditional Russian hospitality. Aeroflot also flies one of the most modern fleets of any major airline globally, with an average aircraft age of 4.4 years as of year-end 2015.

Vitaly Saveliev, CEO of Aeroflot, said:

"Skytrax’s expertise and independence ?is unparalleled in our industry, which is why this award is such an honour for us and recognition of our considerable efforts over the years to make the Aeroflot brand synonymous with quality.  This is a huge win for the entire Aeroflot team -- from our ground staff to the cabin crew to the men and women in the flight deck -- they are the ones that make our commitment to quality a reality every day.” 

Edward Plaisted, CEO of Skytrax added: "We are delighted to be recognising Aeroflot today on achieving the 4-Star Airline rating. The Aeroflot customer experience has undergone a remarkable quality change and continuous improvement over the last few years, throughout which period Skytrax has closely monitored the progress across their long haul, regional and domestic services. Product change and development has been consistent, and this is supported by Aeroflot having one of the youngest aircraft fleets for an airline of this size. Of paramount importance has been the significant improvement in Aeroflot staff service standards, not only in service systems but the way in which Aeroflot has achieved a service culture that is now young, vibrant and contemporary."

Manchester United Group Managing Director Richard Arnold said:

“When we heralded our global partnership with Aeroflot almost three years ago, we described it as a title winning organisation due to such awards as ‘Most Stylish Airline,’ ‘Russia’s Company of the Year’ and the ‘Best Airline in Eastern Europe’.

Today, with this accolade, Aeroflot has taken its place as a premium global airline. If this was made more possible following what we have achieved together, we are immensely proud.

“Like Manchester United, Aeroflot takes great pride in its history, but we both seek to be the very best in the world at what we do. I am sure we will continue to achieve great things in the future.“

About Aeroflot 

Aeroflot is Russia’s flagship carrier and one of the largest airline groups in Europe. In 2015, Aeroflot carried 26.1 million passengers (39.4 million passengers as Aeroflot Group including subsidiaries), a record for any Russian airline. A proud member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance, Aeroflot and its partners serve 1,057 destinations in 179 countries worldwide. Aeroflot operates one of the youngest fleets in the world, numbering 171 Airbus, Boeing and Sukhoi airliners. Aeroflot is among the global leaders in aviation safety. The company’s European Community Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft (SAFA) Index, which is the main globally recognized safety parameter, is comparable to global peers. The first Russian carrier to enter the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) register, renewing its registration for the sixth time in 2015, Aeroflot has successfully passed the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations (ISAGO) and is fully ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004 compliant. In 2015 Aeroflot was named by SKYTRAX as the Best Airline in Eastern Europe for the fourth time and for the first time was ranked among TOP-10 airlines with Best Airline Cuisine according to Global Traveler.