Matador Network Awards 2025: Best Airline

Qatar Airways positions Doha as a one-stop gateway between Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. In 2025, that map stretched even farther. The flagship development is a new route linking Doha with Bogotá and Caracas. The twice-weekly service makes Qatar the first and only airline to fly non-stop from the Middle East to Colombia.

For the winter schedule, the airline boosted frequencies to more than 15 major destinations, including Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, Shanghai, Singapore, Cape Town, Dublin, London, Phuket, and Toronto, adding thousands of extra flights to its schedule.

Photo: Qatar Airways

Qsuite has been Qatar’s calling card for years. The business-class seat helped erase the line between business and first. In 2025, it evolved again with Qsuite Next Gen, a refreshed version that debuts on new Boeing 777-9s and future retrofits, with upgraded privacy doors, more storage, and flexible “quad” layouts for families or groups traveling together.

On more and more long-haul routes, booking Qatar business class means a high probability of getting an enclosed suite with a lie-flat bed, dine-on-demand, and thoughtful design details that still feel ahead of much of the industry.

Importantly, Qatar’s appeal doesn’t stop at the pointy end of the plane. Economy and non-suite business cabins on its A350s and 787s offer relatively generous seat width, large HD screens, and a considered service style.

Like other serious long-haul airlines, Qatar is betting big on the Airbus A350. The -900 and -1000 variants already anchor many flagship routes, but in 2025, onboard tech started to meaningfully differentiate the experience. After completing Starlink installs on 54 Boeing 777s, Qatar is now rolling the high-speed satellite Wi-Fi out across its A350 fleet. For travelers, that means near-ground-level connectivity on more long sectors: streaming, video calls, real-time work, and live sports are feasible

Combine that with the A350’s naturally quieter cabins, better humidity and pressurization, and lower fuel burn per passenger, and you get exactly what you want on a 14- or 15-hour leg between continents.

Photo: YARphotographer/Shutterstock

On the ground, Qatar’s big North America story is about New York. In 2026, the airline will move to JFK’s new Terminal One and open a 15,000-square-foot flagship lounge — its first dedicated US lounge and a clear signal that it sees transatlantic and transpacific flows via the US as central to its future.

The carrier has signed up to the World Economic Forum’s First Movers Coalition, committed to scaling sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and launched programs with partners like Formula 1 to buy and use more SAF on specific routes. Pair that with a modern, fuel-efficient long-haul fleet dominated by A350s and 787s, and you get a carrier that’s structurally better positioned than many legacy rivals as aviation tries to decarbonize.