SYDNEY, Australia — September 4, 2026 — In an industry where a delay can result in damage to the reputation of an airline, Virgin Australia has managed to do something much more difficult: gain the trust of Australian people.
After being named the winner of Australia’s Most Trusted Travel & Tourism Brand for 2026, Virgin Australia became the winner of the Roy Morgan Trusted Brand Awards for the fourth year in a row. Roy Morgan made the announcement on September 3, 2026, and, on the next day, CIM Business Events reported it.
This victory allows Virgin Australia to join the small group of Australian brands that managed to convert recognisability into trust. According to Roy Morgan, their awards celebrate brands that achieve high levels of trust and extremely low levels of distrust, thus making their results more valuable than just popular ratings.
For Virgin Australia, this triumph is particularly important as it comes against the backdrop of significant turmoil in the global airline industry. According to Roy Morgan’s Chief Executive Michele Levine, the airline successfully maintained high customer service levels despite the challenging environment, and she argues that the company has a distinct advantage in terms of trust, positioning it well for growth in the competitive travel market in Australia.
But what is it exactly that makes passengers trust the airline?
Roy Morgan has pointed out that the strong performance of Virgin Australia is due to various factors – quality of service, value for money, consistency and dependability of services offered, help offered by airline personnel, honesty in situations when issues arise, as well as the carriers’ record concerning passengers during delays.
Virgin Australia’s nearly 8,000 employees are key to the company’s achievement. Chief Customer Officer Andrew Cleary stated that trust comes from ongoing interactions rather than from a single campaign, noting that employees deserve credit for delivering what Virgin Australia claims to be a safe, dependable, and friendly experience.
The 2026 results position Virgin Australia uniquely within Roy Morgan’s overall trust landscape. Out of the 22 winners across different segments, 19 have repeated the success of the previous year, and eight brands have maintained the streak since the commencement of the awards in 2019. On the contrary, Virgin Australia is among the newer repeat awardees, claiming the fourth consecutive award in travel and tourism.
The magnitude of the customer engagement undertaken helps put the recognition into context. Virgin Australia has shared that in the year in which it was honoured for the year 2025, it transported approximately 21 million passengers, with a flight completion rate of 98.4% on almost 400 flights every day.
That makes the current award much more than a mere badge on a plane. It acts as an important message for the industry, where transport operations normally mean the long-term presence of an airline on an important flight market.
