Although statistically you’re much more likely to die in a traffic accident than an airplane accident, many people are nervous about flying. If you’re one of those nervous flyers, you might feel better if you choose an airline known for safety. With that in mind, Airline Ratings has named its 20 safest airlines for 2019. It also released its choices for the 10 safest low-cost airlines.
In making its ratings, Airline Ratings took into account an array of factors including audits from aviation’s governing and industry bodies; crash and serious incident records; audits from aviation’s governing bodies; fleet age; safety initiatives; and profitability. They studied 450 airlines from all over the world to come up with their rankings.
The big winner
The world’s safest airline, they say, is Australian carrier Qantas. In case you’re wondering, Qantas is pronounced KWAN-tas, and it’s an acronym for the airline’s original name, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services.
Airline Ratings noted that over its 98-year history, the world’s oldest continuously operating airline has been first out of the gate with many operations and safety initiatives. For example, Qantas has led the development of many safety practices and instruments that have been adopted around the world, including flight data recorders to monitor plane and crew performance; and the “autoland” system, which allows pilots to use the Global Navigation Satellite System and other technology for precision approaches around mountains in clouds.
Qantas also uses real-time monitoring of its engines’ performance across its fleet through the use of satellite communications; this allows the airline to detect problems with the engines before they become a safety issue.
The top 20
In addition to Qantas, the others that made the top 20 safest airlines list are, in alphabetical order: Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airways, American Airlines, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, EVA Air, Finnair, Hawaiian Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, Qatar, Scandinavian Airline System (SAS), Singapore Airlines, Swiss, United Airlines, and the Virgin group of airlines (Atlantic and Australia).
But what about the budget carriers?
Airline Ratings looked at budget carriers around the world and selected its top 10 safest airlines based on the fact that these airlines have all passed the stringent International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (OSA) and have excellent safety records.
The top 10 budget carriers are, in alphabetical order: Flybe, Frontier, HK Express, Jetblue, Jetstar Australia/Asia, Thomas Cook, Volaris, Vueling, Westjet, and Wizz.
Conclusion
Serious problems with airplanes are few and far between—take the whole debacle with the Boeing 737 Max, for example—but, as Airline Ratings Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Thomas said, “All airlines have incidents every day and many are aircraft manufacture issues, not airline operational problems. It is the way the flight crew handles incidents that [distinguishes] a good airline from an unsafe one. So just lumping all incidents together is very misleading.”
So, if you’re nervous about flying, you can feel a little safer if you fly on one of the airlines listed in this post, knowing that you’re in the hands of good pilots and crew and flying in a well-maintained aircraft.
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