International air transport rating organisation Skytrax was established in 1989. It is a United Kingdom-based consultancy that runs an airline and airport review and ranking site. Skytrax World Airline Star Rating is recognised as a global Benchmark of airline standards around the world for its Airline and Airport Star Rating, the World Airline Awards and Airport Awards.

 Skytrax, have unique knowledge, expertise and experience of quality issues affecting the air transport industry.

Team members log hundreds of thousands of air miles every year across airlines worldwide, and have unique expertise and experience embracing aircraft “without fear or favour”.

Skytrax conducts research for commercial airlines, as well as taking surveys from international travelers to rate cabin staff, airports, airlines, airline lounges, in-flight entertainment, on-board catering, and several other elements of air travel. Apart from these evaluations, Skytrax has an airline forum where passengers give potential passengers insights and opinions about an airline. The website also hosts flight reviews, flight checks, and satisfaction surveys. 

The Star Rating uses a quality scale from 1-Star through to the exclusive 5-Star Airline award. Ratings are based on the evaluation of product and service standards across the onboard and airport environments, using a unified and consistent rating system. It's worth noting that Airline Star Ratings are not associated with customer reviews, and are based on research by Skytrax Audit Office.


A brief explanation of  Star Rating levels is shown below:
 

• To achieve a top 5-Star rating, the staff service or product standards must be either meeting or setting global best practices for the item under evaluation. For product analysis, this is a clear, tangible item, and for a service assessment, we look for all aspects of excellence supported by true consistency. It is not necessary for an airline to achieve 5-Star for every element of the rating criteria.
   
• The 4-Star rating represents where the airport/cabin staff service or product standards are meeting a good quality level (but not the best) for the relevant rating topic item. In some instances, a potential 5-Star rating may be lowered to 4-Star if the consistency is not being delivered.
   
• 3-Star rating is applied where staff service standards or product standards are fair or average. This may reflect some inconsistency or weakness in staff service, or poorer product standards in areas such as seating, IFE, catering etc.
   
• 2-Star rating is used where the service and/or product standards do not meet required quality levels for the typical operation format of the airline (ie. full service or low-cost carrier). For the airline’s staff service, a 2-Star rating is applied where service is poor, inconsistent and/or unfriendly.
   
• 1-Star rating is rarely applied, but it signifies that product and/or service standards are totally unacceptable (ie. very poor). In some cases where a specific product or service item required to meet international expectations is not provided, Skytrax may apply the 1-Star rating.
   

Airline Star Ratings are known as a global benchmark of world airline standards, developed through many years of professional experience and Skytrax specialist, qualitative knowledge of the airline industry.

The World Airline Audit that may be used as part of a rating analysis delivers a complex quality analysis across all areas of Product and Service that customers experience across the airport and onboard travel experience, with rating accuracy supported by the Skytrax unified and global approach.