World’s Safest Airlines for 2015 Announced

Australian airline Qantas has once again topped the list of the world’s safest airlines. Photo © Qantas

Safety and product rating website AirlineRatings.com recently announced its top ten safest airlines and top ten safest low cost airlines for 2015 from the 449 it monitors.

Photo source: AirlineRatings.com

Top of the list again is Australian airline Qantas which has a fatality free record in the jet era. Following in the top ten (in alphabetical order) are: Air New Zealand, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines.

AirlineRatings.com’s rating system takes into account a range of factors related to audits from aviation’s governing bodies such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as well as government audits and the airline’s fatality record.

AirlineRating.com’s editorial team, also examined each airline’s operational history, incident records and operational excellence to arrive at its top ten safest airlines.

“The AirlineRatings.com top ten are always at the forefront of safety innovation and launching new planes and these airlines are a byword for excellence,” it was noted by AirlineRatings.com.

Responding to public interest, the AirlineRatings.com editors also identified their top ten safest low cost airlines.

Photo © TUIfly

They are (in alphabetical order): Aer Lingus, Alaska Airlines, Icelandair, Jetblue, Jetstar,  Kulula.com, Monarch Airlines, Thomas Cook, TUI Fly and Westjet.

According to AirlineRatings.com, unlike a number of low cost carriers, these airlines have all passed the stringent International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) audit and have excellent safety records. Many non-IATA airlines have done the IOSA audit.

Of the 449 airlines surveyed 149 have the top seven-star safety ranking, but almost 50 have just three stars or less. Four airlines only achieved one star for safety from AirlineRatings.com. These are: Kam Air, Nepal Airlines, Scat and Tara Air.

2014: A bizarre year for air safety

AirlineRatings.com also noted that 2014 was a “bad year for airline safety with some of the most tragic and bizarre incidents in modern history” but added that the numbers can be deceiving.

“Certainly 21 fatal accidents with 986 fatalities – higher than the 10-year average – is sickening,” AirlineRatings.com said.

However, the world’s airlines carried a record 3.3 billion passengers on 27 million flights. Flashback 50 years and there were a staggering 87 crashes killing 1,597 when airlines carried only 141 million passengers – 5 per cent of today’s number.

AirlineRatings.com added that another twist is that fatal accidents for 2014 were at a record low 21 – one for every 1.3 million flights. Two of the crashes last year – MH370 and MH17 – were unprecedented in modern times and claimed 537 lives.