The latest airline safety ratings released by AirlineRatings.com declared Singapore’s flag carrier to be the sixth safest airline of 2020, while Australia’s Qantas took the lead again.
Flying is no small matter, and there’s a lot that goes into choosing an airline that will comfortably and safely (we all hope!) take you from one part of the world to another.
AirlineRatings.com, the world’s leading authority on airline safety and product ratings, actively monitors 405 different airlines across the globe. On January 2, it released its list of the Top Twenty Safest Airlines 2020.
Qantas does it again
Named the fourth best airline in the world overall in another list by AirlineRatings.com, Qantas means business when it comes to safety. The airline has proudly held on the title of the world’s safest airline, claiming the number one spot from 2014 to 2017.
In 2018, AirlineRatings reportedly could identify no clear “winner”, so the top 20 airlines were acknowledged in alphabetical order instead. This year, Qantas is still on top.
“Australia’s Qantas has been recognized by the British Advertising Standards Association in a test case as the world’s most experienced airline,” said Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of the Australian-based rankings website.
“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,” he added, noting also that “long established airlines such as Hawaiian and Finnair have perfect records in the jet era”.
Thomas also lauded Qantas for its innovations and the “extraordinary success of its Perth to London Boeing 787 nonstop service” as well as its recent London-Sydney and New York-Sydney test flights.
The top 10
The ratings website identified the top 10 safest airlines in the world as Qantas, Air New Zealand (which was named the top airlines in the world for 2020), Taiwan’s EVA Air, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Alaska Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Virgin Australia.
Besides being named the sixth safest airline in the world, Singapore’s flag carrier was also touted as the second best airline overall and the best first class airline in another list.
Most of the list toppers are returning names, but Etihad Airways has made it to the top 10 for the first time.
Interestingly, Thomas noted that there was “not much between the top 10” airlines, but that “wider gaps appear from 10 to 20”.
Factors considered in the safety rankings
AirlineRankings.com used data from the 405 airlines it surveys to accurately put together the safety rankings.
Factors that were considered include crash and serious incident records, audits from aviation bodies and governments, fleet age, financial position, pilot training and culture.
Minor incidents were not taken into consideration, as “all airlines have incidents every day”, according to Thomas.
“It is the way the flight crew handles incidents that determines a good airline from an unsafe one,” he told CNN Travel.
He noted that the top 20 safest airlines are “standouts in the industry and are at the forefront of safety, innovation, and launching of new aircraft”.
Airlines that didn’t make the cut
Airlines that didn’t make it to the list this year are British Airways, ANA, American Airlines and United Airlines, whereas they had all made the top 20 last year.
Other airlines missing from the list were Japan Airlines and Delta, though they were both part of previous rankings.
Thomas says British Airways fell from the rankings due to a “combination of fleet age [high average of 13.8 years] and the number of incidents…which were not life-threatening but there were a lot of them compared to other airlines of similar size”.
He also cited incidents with United, American, Delta, JAL and ANA where pilots were reportedly intoxicated.
Safest budget airlines
AirlineRatings.com has also produced a list of the 10 world’s safest budget airlines, all equally ranked. The top safest low-budget airlines are Air Arabia, Flybe, Frontier, HK Express, IndiGo, Jetblue, Volaris, Vueling, Westjet and Wizz Air.
The full list
Here is the full list of the Top 20 Safest Airlines in the world:
1. Qantas
2. Air New Zealand
3. EVA Air
4. Etihad Airways
5. Qatar Airways
6. Singapore Airlines
7. Emirates
8. Alaska Airlines
9. Cathay Pacific
10. Virgin Australia
11. Hawaiian Airlines
12. Virgin Atlantic
13. TAP Air Portugal
14. SAS
15. Royal Jordanian
16. Swiss
17. Finnair
18. Lufthansa
19. Aer Lingus
20. KLM
/TISG