Qatar Airways Won Best Airline in the Middle East for the 14th Time, in the Same Year It Lost Skytrax’s World Title

The Gulf’s top airline is still the Gulf’s top airline. What changed in 2026 is everything around it.

Qatar Airways is the best airline in the Middle East for 2026, according to the Skytrax World Airline Awards announced in London on September 18, 2026. It is the 14th time the Doha airline has taken the regional title, Gulf News reported.

Emirates came second, Saudia third and Etihad Airways fourth. On the same night, Singapore Airlines took the World’s Best Airline title back from Qatar, which had won it in 2025 and dropped to second.

Why Qatar keeps winning the Middle East

Business class is the short answer. Skytrax named Qatar the World’s Best Business Class for 2026, the 13th time it has won that award, and gave its business class seat a world title too.

Its Al Mourjan Business Lounge, The Garden, at Hamad International Airport was named the World’s Best Business Class Lounge, an eighth win for Qatar in that category. The airline also took the first ever World’s Best Onboard Wi-Fi award, a category Skytrax added in 2026.

In the region it took several of the headline awards. Qatar won Best Business Class, Best Economy Class and Cleanest Airline in the Middle East, plus the regional business class catering award.

Group CEO Hamad Al Khater said the airline’s 60,000 staff had delivered “through a particularly challenging year.” He dedicated all four awards to them.

Qatar is still a nine-time winner of the overall World’s Best Airline title, and the other big global ranking still puts it first. AirlineRatings named Qatar the best full-service airline in the world for 2026, with Singapore third. Our ranking of the best airlines in the world sets the two lists side by side.

The 10 best airlines in the Middle East, by the numbers

This is Skytrax’s “Best Airlines in the Middle East 2026” list in its own order, with each airline’s place in the Skytrax World’s Top 100 and in the AirlineRatings 2026 lists, as of November 2026.

Rank	Airline	Skytrax world rank 2026 (2025)	AirlineRatings 2026
1	Qatar Airways	2 (1)	Full-service #1
2	Emirates	6 (4)	Full-service #8
3	Saudia	15 (17)	Full-service #23
4	Etihad Airways	22 (26)	Full-service #10
5	flynas	56 (58)	Low-cost #6
6	Oman Air	60 (48)	Not ranked
7	Gulf Air	75 (35)	Not ranked
8	flydubai	80 (74)	Not ranked
9	Royal Jordanian	98 (132)	Not ranked
10	flyadeal	Outside top 100	Not ranked

Emirates is the region’s number two and the only other Middle East airline in the world top 10. It slipped from fourth to sixth in the world, passed by Turkish Airlines and ANA.

It still won the world title for inflight entertainment, plus Skytrax awards for its premium economy seat and catering. In the region it took Best First Class, Best Premium Economy Class and Most Family Friendly Airline in the Middle East.

The surprise is third place. Saudia, the Jeddah-based flag carrier of Saudi Arabia, climbed to 15th in the world and finished ahead of Etihad. It won Best Airline Staff and Best Cabin Crew in the Middle East, the staff award for a second year running.

Etihad, from Abu Dhabi, rose four places to 22nd in the world but won no Skytrax category award in 2026. The AirlineRatings editors read the two very differently: they put Etihad 10th among full-service airlines and Saudia 23rd.

Gulf Air fell 40 places, and the low-cost airlines climbed

The biggest mover in the region went the wrong way. Bahrain’s Gulf Air fell from 35th in the world in 2025 to 75th in 2026, the steepest drop of any airline in the Middle East top 10.

Oman Air also slid, from 48th to 60th, and flydubai dropped from 74th to 80th. Both stay on the regional list, but neither won a Skytrax award this year.

Royal Jordanian moved the other way. It climbed from 132nd to 98th, moving into the world top 100, and Skytrax named it the Most Improved Airline in the Middle East.

The region’s best budget carrier now outranks two of its flag carriers. Saudi low-cost airline flynas sits fifth in the Middle East and 56th in the world, ahead of Oman Air and Gulf Air.

Its CEO, Bander Almohanna, said flynas has now won Best Low-Cost Airline in the Middle East for the ninth year in a row. AirlineRatings also rates it highly, placing it sixth among the world’s low-cost airlines.

Why the Middle East ranking matters more than Europe’s

The Gulf’s big airlines compete for the same passenger: someone flying between Europe, Asia, Africa or Australia with one stop in Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

That makes the order of Qatar, Emirates and Etihad unusually concrete. Our Emirates vs Qatar vs Etihad comparison covers that choice cabin by cabin, and the Skytrax order gives it a passenger vote to stand on.

It also contrasts sharply with Europe. The best airline in Europe for 2026, Turkish Airlines, ranks fifth in the world. The Middle East’s top two both sit in the world top six, and its top four are all inside the top 22.

The ranking also predates a hard autumn for the region. Skytrax’s survey closed in August 2026, and on October 8 a missile attack claimed by Yemen’s Houthi movement left a Saudia airliner burned out at a Riyadh terminal and grounded hundreds of flights.

What’s coming next from the Gulf’s top airlines

Qatar’s next business class seat is late. Qsuite Next Gen will debut in mid-2027 on the Airbus A350-1000, its CEO said in October 2026, not on the Boeing 777-9 it was unveiled for in 2024.

That is the seat Qatar will defend its business class title with. Our ranking of the best business class airlines shows how close the chasing pack is.

Etihad is leaning on its superjumbo. Its Airbus A380 began a daily Abu Dhabi to Bangkok service on October 26, 2026, the first time Etihad has flown its flagship to Thailand. That puts its three-room Residence suite on a Thai route.

And Saudia faces a rival at home. Saudi Arabia’s new Riyadh Air is not on the 2026 list, and Saudia plans to leave its Riyadh hub to it by 2030.

Qatar Airways marks its 30th anniversary in 2027, its CEO said. It goes into that year as the Middle East’s best airline and Skytrax’s world number two, one place short of the title it held in 2025.