Qatar Airways has been awarded a PCI-DSS Certificate of Compliance as one of few airlines to introduce the high level security standards safeguarding and securing customers’ payment and card information.

The industry-wide standard aims to increase protection for customers against credit card fraud by limiting exposure of secure data when using major debit, credit, prepaid, e-purse and ATM cards for transactions.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker, who was presented with the certificate on behalf of the airline, said the carrier had tight procedures based on the high number of card-based transactions handled.

“Customer satisfaction is our main priority and I am very pleased that the ongoing measures we put in place have been recognised as vital in protecting against credit card fraud,” he said.

“I am also very proud that Qatar Airways is one of the few airlines that has adopted with such diligence, a high level of services aimed at ensuring our customers have comfort and trust during transactions using their payment cards.”

Payments cover card usage across subsidiaries within the Qatar Airways Group, as well as offices around the world. The subsidiaries cover Qatar Aviation Services, Qatar Aircraft Catering Company, Qatar Duty Free, Qatar Airways Cargo, Qatar Distribution Company, Qatar Executive and Al Maha Services.

Qatar Airways operates a modern fleet of 106 aircraft to 112 key business and leisure destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America. The award-winning airline expands its global network significantly during 2012 with 14 new routes – Baku, Tbilisi, Kigali, Zagreb, Perth, Mombasa, Helsinki, Gassim, Zanzibar, Yangon, Belgrade, Erbil, Baghdad and Kilimanjaro.