Most passengers take safety for granted when it comes to flying nowadays. After all, it turns out 2017 was the safest year for flying since records began. But some airlines lead the pack with safety records and procedures that set the industry benchmark. Now, airlineratings.com, the only safety and product rating website has just released its list of the 20 safest airlines in the world based on comprehensive data analysis.
The number crunchers at airlineratings.com use a special seven-star rating system which judges airlines on a number of measures. Key amongst them is whether an airline has maintained a fatality free record for at least 10 years. The website also judges airlines on the age of their fleet and whether they comply with tough international audits.
This year, many of the names on the list probably come as no surprise. Although the lack of the Big Three U.S. carriers – American, Delta and United Airlines – raises important questions about what exactly is happening at those airlines.
Rather than a definitive list, airlineratings.com has decided to name its Top 20 Safest Airlines in alphabetical order, as follows:
Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, Qantas, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Scandinavian Airline System, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia.
It’s definitely no surprise that Australian flag-carrier, Qantas has once again made the list but Geoffrey Thomas, editor in chief at airlineratings.com says Qantas is not alone.
“It is extraordinary that Qantas has been the lead airline in virtually every major operational safety advancement over the past 60 years and has not had a fatality in the jet era,” Thomas commented.
But he explains: “Long established airlines such as Hawaiian and Finnair have perfect records in the jet era,” as well.
For the first time, we also now know what the Top 10 Safest Low-Cost Airlines are. Once again in alphabetical order, these are:
Aer Lingus, Flybe, Frontier, HK Express, Jetblue, Jetstar Australia, Thomas Cook, Virgin America, Vueling and Westjet.
And now that you know what the safest airline to fly with are, it might be worth finding out what airlines you definitely want to avoid. Luckily, airlineratings.com has that covered as well, with its list of the lowest ranked airlines:
Air Koryo, Bluewing Airlines, Buddha Air, Nepal Airlines, Tara Air, Trigana Air Service and Yeti Airlines.
Only yesterday, we learned that 2017 was the safest year for flying since records began. There weren’t any jet-powered crashes and just 10 fatal commercial and cargo crashes that resulted in the deaths of 44 people.
According to the Aviation Safety Network (ASN), the figures for 2017 are way below the five-year average of 17 crashes with 495 deaths per year. The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) recently put the fatal accident rate at around one per 100,000 flight hours.
