AirlineRatings has published its analysis of 405 airlines from around the world, releasing the list of world’s safest and least safe airlines for 2019.
According to the safety ratings and quality analyst, the lowest ranked airlines with just one- and two-star safety ratings are:
- Ariana Afghan Airlines (Afghanistan)
- Blue Wing Airlines (Suriname)
- Kam Air (Afghanistan)
- Tara Air (Nepal)
- Trigana Air Service (Indonesia).
The two new names on the most dangerous airlines list both hail from Afghanistan, knocking out Air Koryo (North Korea) and Nepal Airlines from the ignominious end of the safety rating register.
Top honours for the safest airline in the world once again go to Qantas which, according to AirlineRatings, has “amassed an amazing record of firsts in operations and safety and is now accepted as the industry’s most experienced airline. The Australian airline has been a leader in the development of: Future Air Navigation System; the flight data recorder to monitor plane and later crew performance; automatic landings using Global Navigation Satellite System as well as precision approaches around mountains in cloud using RNP.”
AirlineRatings analyses audits from aviation’s governing and industry bodies, as well as government audits, crash and serious incident records, profitability, industry-leading safety initiatives and fleet age.
“All airlines have incidents every day and many are aircraft manufacture issues, not airline operational problems,” said editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas.
“It is the way the flight crew handles incidents that determines a good airline from an unsafe one. So just lumping all incidents together is very misleading. And some countries incident reporting systems are weak further complicating matters.”
As each of the airlines scored a perfect seven out of seven stars, AirlineRatings’ top 20 list does not publish the airlines in any particular order.
The top 20 safest airlines for 2019
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
Qantas
Qatar
Scandinavian Airline System
Singapore Airlines
Swiss
United Airlines
Virgin group of airlines (Atlantic and Australia).
Top 10 safest low-cost airlines for 2019
Flybe
Frontier
HK Express
Jetblue
Jetstar Australia/Asia
Thomas Cook
Volaris
Vueling
Westjet
Wizz
Which of these airlines is your favourite? Have you ever flown with one of the least safe airlines?
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World’s least reliable airlines
