Air Tanzania, RwandAir and Uganda Airlines failed to make the cut in the top 100 carriers in the Skytrax World Airline Awards—which rates the world’s best carriers with Kenya Airways being ranked in position 81 down from 79th in last year’s report. However, the Rwandan carrier scooped some category awards in ‘Best Cabin Crew in Africa’ and ‘Best Airline Cabin Cleanliness’. Overall, Qatar Airways was named the best airline in the world, a title it has now won seven times since 2001. Kenya Airways trailed its regional rival Ethiopian Airlines, which recorded a significant jump to fly within the top 30 carriers in the world. Ethiopian Airlines, which rose 11 places to position 26, emerged as Africa’s best carrier with South African Airways and Air Maroc coming in at position 66 and 79 respectively to stay within the top 100 carriers globally. Rising global fuel prices inflicted a ninth consecutive half-year loss on Kenya Airways increasing its default risk and sinking it Sh15 billion deeper into a negative equity position. KQ, which has been surviving on State bailouts since the COVID-19 pandemic, reported a Sh9.8 billion loss last month -- a better performance than the Sh11.48 billion loss it recorded in the same period a year earlier. The Skytrax awards are based on customers’ surveys. Travellers are asked about the performance and service quality of more than 350 global airlines. The ranking comes at a time when the aviation industry is recovering from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic that saw the industry record one of the worst losses after passenger flights were grounded to curb the spread of the virus.