Air New Zealand has taken top honours for the third year in a row from a ratings website and invited American pop star Taylor Swift to feature in its next inflight video.
The airline posted an image of Swift next to the stars of its previous videos, and urged the 25-year-old to consider starring in the next instalment.
"It was great to see Taylor Swift exploring some of what our beautiful country has to offer on social media earlier today and we thought we would take the opportunity to invite her to star in one of our safety videos," an Air New Zealand spokeswoman said. "We can't wait to hear what she has to say."
Air New Zealand has previously had Bear Grylls, the All Blacks, pro surfers and the polarising "Rico" character star in its safety videos.
Swift has shared images of her New Zealand holiday with her 56.9 million Instagram fans, and her visit attracted extensive media and social media coverage. A picture of her at a South Island lake was "favourited" on Instagram at least 1 million times.
The Perth-based AirlineRatings.com. gave Air New Zealand top marks for in-flight innovations, record-breaking financial performance, operational safety, environmental leadership and motivation of its staff that it says have stamped the airline as an industry trendsetter.
The site was founded by veteran aviation journalist and commentator Geoffrey Thomas, who said the editorial team had also awarded the airline best premium economy class and best economy class.
"Air New Zealand has catapulted to the top tier of the industry over the past five years and now is one of the industry's most awarded."
Thomas said Air New Zealand was an airline of first choice and "given the airline's location and the country's size, its performance is stunning".
The airline announced a net profit of $327 million in the 12 months to June, up 24% on the same period last year and was expanding rapidly with flights to Argentina, starting overnight, and a new service to Houston before Christmas.
Qantas won best domestic airline service, best catering and best lounges.
Etihad Airways - which boasts butler serviced "residences" on its Airbus A380s - was voted best first class for its new upgraded product.
Singapore Airlines won best business class and best in-flight entertainment.
For value and safety in the low-cost sector, the editors selected Virgin America (Americas), Norwegian (Europe), Kulula.com (Africa/Middle-East) and Scoot for Asia/Pacific.
