This Quebec airline ranks as the world’s best for leisure and it beat major carriers

Between cramped seats, spotty WiFi, and food that rarely lives up to the menu description, flying is often something to get through rather than enjoy.

But if you’ve recently stepped off an Air Transat flight, you may not have realized you were flying with one of the best airlines in the world.

Air Transat was just named the World’s Best Leisure Airline at the 2026 Skytrax World Airline Awards, an honour often called “the Oscars of the airline industry” since it’s decided by passengers rather than critics or industry insiders.

This year’s results were pulled from 24.8 million eligible survey responses collected between September 2025 and August 2026, gathered from travellers representing more than 100 nationalities.

The airline topped the leisure rankings outright, beating out a field that included some heavily backed competitors. Here’s how the top 10 shook out:

1. Air Transat
2. SunExpress
3. TUI Airways
4. Sun PhuQuoc Airways
5. Condor Airlines
6. TUIfly
7. Edelweiss Air
8. Capital Airlines
9. Vietravel Airlines
10. Corendon Airlines

This marks the eighth time Air Transat has won the category, following previous wins in 2012, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 2023, 2024, and 2025.

President and CEO Annick Guérard, who accepted the award in London, called it “a well-deserved recognition of our teams.”

Transat’s showing looks even more impressive once you look at Skytrax’s broader World’s Top 100 Airlines ranking. The airline climbed from 62nd last year to 59th this year, edging past bigger names like American Airlines (65th), Ryanair (64th), IndiGo (61st), and Allegiant Air (63rd).

It wasn’t the only Canadian carrier to make the list, either. Air Canada led the pack domestically at 17th, followed by Porter Airlines at 34th, a solid jump from 44th the year before.

WestJet came in at 85th, while Air Canada Rouge rounded out the bottom of the list at 100th, down from 94th last year. Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, and Cathay Pacific Airways rounded out the global top three.

Founded in Montreal in 1987, Air Transat now flies out of Montréal-Trudeau and Toronto Pearson to destinations across Europe, the Caribbean, the U.S. East Coast, and North Africa.

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