It has been a tough year for Qantas and its passengers – and now the Australian flag carrierit has now been crowned by consumer advocacy group Choice in its annual Shonky Awards.

But Qantas has fired back at the ‘award’ this morning, insisting the data used by Choice is itself ‘shonky’.

Describing Qantas as the “spirit of disappointment”, Choice criticised the carrier for delayed flights, lost baggage, airport chaos and the problems many customers had trying to claim travel credit stemming from COVID-19 pandemic flight cancellations.

The consumer group also called out long wait times for customer service, claiming the company appeared “deliberately to be going out of its way to win a Shonky Award”.

In a statement to 9News.com.au, Qantas claimed Choice’s data is incorrect and the airline has been transparent about the challenges facing the entire airline industry.

“These awards are clearly out of date and the data Choice is using is itself a bit shonky,” a Qantas spokesperson said.

“We had several months of poor performance earlier in the year, but it’s improved significantly since August and we’re back to our pre-COVID level of service.”