Australians prefer Qantas as their airline for both international and domestic travel, according to EMMA.
The Flying Kangaroo also rates number one for safety and high quality products and services.
The EMMA (Enhanced Media Metrics Australia) Industry Report on Airlines found that 25% of travellers selected Qantas for international travel. Emirates followed at 12%, then Jetstar (11%) and Singapore Airlines (10%).
Qantas also remains Australia’s favourite airline for domestic travel, however the battle between the nation’s domestic carriers is closely contested. Qantas and Virgin were tied, with 33% of respondents flying either carrier in the past year and 31% flying with Jetstar. However, 20% of people said that Qantas was their main carrier, compared to 17% who said the same about Virgin and 16% for Jetstar.
“We found a similar pattern of usage between domestic travellers for leisure and business. Qantas beats rivals Virgin and Jetstar in terms of usage, but only just. Business travellers state that they value Qantas’s service and extensive network, but rate Virgin for its personality and Jetstar for value for money and price,” said Ipsos MediaCT managing director Simon Wake.
In terms of international travel, the report found Emirates, Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and Qantas have a higher proportion of flyers aged 45-64. At the same time Etihad’s flyer profile skews higher with the younger age group of 14-29 and the 65+ group.
Qantas rated the highest among the international airlines at 39% for high quality products and services, ahead of Singapore Airlines (33%) and Emirates (30%). Cathay Pacific, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic ranked lowest on this measure at 15%.
When it comes to the pricing of international flights, Australians currently believe that Singapore Airlines leads the pack (19%), ahead of Qantas (18%) and Virgin Atlantic (15%).
With safety the utmost concern of many travellers in the wake of recent tragic events, Qantas’s prevailing reputation for safety sees it rank far head of its competitors as ‘safe to fly with’ at 54%. Singapore Airlines followed at 39% then Emirates at 33%.
Despite recent safety concerns, Australians remain addicted to travel, with almost three quarters (73%) of Australians aged 14 years and over travelling overseas at least once and almost one third (30%) doing so in the past year.
Australians are heading overseas in droves for holidays, with 95% of people stating that their international trips are for leisure and 14% stating that they travel overseas for business.
Australia’s passion for travel extends to domestic adventures as well, with 58% of people flying domestically at least once in the past twelve months. Of this group, 96% flew for leisure and 32% flew for business.
“Australians are passionate about travel, in particular air travel. Due to recent tragic events, understandably safety in the air will be on people’s minds but with Australians’ seemingly insatiable appetite for air travel, particularly international, this is unlikely to have a long-term impact on our air travel habits,” Wake said.
“Our research found that of the 5.3 million Australians travelling internationally every year, 27% have travelled for leisure two or more times in the past 12 months. There aren’t many countries around the world that could compete with this figure, which is more impressive when you take into account Australia’s size and location.”
