Air Berlin named best low-cost airline

Air Berlin has been named the world's best low-cost airline in a respected annual survey.

The German airline swapped places with last year's winner, JetBlue Airways, while UK airline Easyjet finished in third place.

The Skytrax survey canvassed the opinions of nearly five million airline passengers on a range of customer satisfaction criteria.

Air Berlin was also named best low-cost airline in Europe, while Easyjet was second and new Spanish airline Vueling was third.

"Low-cost travel will only become more popular, and that means more competition," said Joachim Hunold, chief executive of the winning airline.

"We always wanted to stand out from the rest with our high levels of customer service and that is starting to feed back to us from surveys such as Skytrax. We are really delighted to have gone one better than last year and scooped the worldwide award as well."

Last week British Airways was named ahead of Qantas and Cathay Pacific as the 2006 airline of the year.

Best low-cost airlines
Worldwide
1. Air Berlin
2. JetBlue Airways
3. Easyjet

Europe
1. Air Berlin
2. EasyJet
3. Vueling

Asia
1. Jetstar Asia
2. Kingfisher Airlines
3. Air Asia

Africa
1. Kulula
2. 1time

Auhstralia/Pacific
1. Virgin Blue
2. Freedom Air
3. Jetstar

Middle East
1. Air Arabia
2. Jazeera Airways

North America
1. JetBlue Airways
2. WestJet Airlines
3. Frontier Airlines

South America
1. GOL
2. Bra XXX