RYANAIR has been named as one of the worst airlines on the planet by flight compensation claims firm AirHelp.
The seventh annual study by AirHelp found just four carriers – Korean Air, Kuwait Airways, EasyJet and Thomas Cook Airlines – offer worse on-time performance, service quality and claims processing than the Irish budget airline.
At the other end of the spectrum, Qatar Airways ranked as the top airline worldwide for the second year running - followed by American Airlines and Aeromexico in the top three.
SAS Scandinavian Airlines, in fourth place overall, was found to be the best airline in Europe – flying high with a score of 8.7 out of 10.
In contrast, Ryanair came in 68th place out of 72, with a score of just 5.6.
The low-cost carrier received its lowest score for how efficiently it handles compensation claims, and how long it takes to pay out.
Fellow Irish airline Aer Lingus came in 47th place (Image: Getty)It fared much better in terms of punctuality and the overall service it provides, but that wasn't enough to push it above the fifth lowest spot in the rankings.
Elsewhere, fellow Irish airline Aer Lingus flew in at 47th place on the list with a slightly below average score of 6.8 of 10.
AirHelp – which describes itself as the world's largest flight compensation claims company – operates in over 30 countries and has helped more than 10 million travellers in the past six years.
It surveyed over 40,000 passengers from more than 40 countries in compiling the data, which ranked the performance of 72 airlines that data was available for between January 1 and December 31 last year.
The firm explained: "We calculated how many flights were on time, then we express this number as a percentage.
"The higher the score, the higher the percentage of flights arriving on time – so a score of 8.5 means 85% of flights were on time."
The 10 Worst Airlines of 2019:
63. Adria Airways
64. Aerolineas Argentinas
65. Transavia
66. Laudamotion
67. Norwegian
68. Ryanair
69. Korean Air
70. Kuwait Airways
71. EasyJet
72. Thomas Cook Airlines
The 10 Best Airlines of 2019:
1. Qatar Airways
2. American Airlines
3. Aeromexico
4. SAS Scandinavian Airlines
5. Qantas
6. LATAM Airlines
7. WestJet
8. Luxair
9. Austrian Airlines
10. Emirates
