The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization, founded in 1970, whose mission is to protect the worlds’ resources, the public health and the environment worldwide.
As part of its efforts, the organization monitors several industries that require improvement in order to achieve higher sustainability levels in the future. The airline industry is one of them. It has committed to cut net carbon emissions by 2050, to half of the level achieved in 2005.
Nowadays, many benchmarking best practice examples come from the highly competitive and innovative airline industry. According to Jackie Fry, Ian Humphreys and Graham Francis (2005), benchmarking is considered to be the most commonly used performance tool for increasing performance both for airline companies and airports worldwide.
On a yearly basis, the world’s top airlines are selected, at the prestigious World Airline Awards, based on a worldwide customer survey. For the 2014 awards, around 19 million customers completed the survey that resulted in Cathay Pacific Airways being awarded the top spot among the globe’s airlines. The runners up were Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines at number two and three respectively. The top 10 airlines for 2014 are the following:
According to the Airline Quality Rating, the U.S airline industry succeeded in achieving its best performance of all times last year, in 2013, since the ranking system was launched in 1991.
