The safest airlines in the world revealed: Qantas is No1 with Virgin Atlantic, Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines also making the top 20
- AirlineRatings.com revealed the top 20 safest carriers after studying 400
- The top five also includes Air New Zealand, Eva Air, Etihad and Qatar Airways
- Low-cost carriers including Flybe, JetBlue and Frontier are among the safest
The world’s safest airlines for 2020 have been revealed by a leading aviation group and Qantas is named as having the best safety record.
Virgin Atlantic, Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, as well as Virgin Australia, also make the top 20 list of the world’s safest carriers.
However, British Airways and American Airlines, which both made the top 20 last year, do not feature in the list for 2020.
The world’s safest airlines for 2020 have been revealed and Qantas is named as having the best safety record
Australia-based AirlineRatings.com releases its safety ranking each year after studying audits from aviation governing bodies, government audits, airlines’ crash and serious incident records, fleet age and pilot training and culture.
In total it studies more than 400 carriers.
Top-rated Qantas is praised by the site for amassing a ‘truly amazing record of firsts in operations and safety’.
AirlineRatings.com editor-in-chief, Geoffrey Thomas said: ‘Australia’s Qantas has been recognised by the British Advertising Standards Association in a test case in 2008 as the world’s most experienced airline.
Virgin Atlantic, pictured, makes it into the top 20 list of the world’s safest carriers
‘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 pure–jet era.’
In second place is Air New Zealand, followed by Eva Air in third, Etihad in fourth and Qatar Airways in fifth.
Singapore Airlines is sixth, Emirates is seventh, Alaska Airlines comes eighth, Cathay Pacific is ninth and Virgin Australia comes 10th.
The rest of the top 20 is made up of Hawaiian Airlines (11th), Virgin Atlantic (12th), TAP Portugal (13th), SAS (14th), Royal Jordanian (15th), Swiss (16th), Finnair (17th), Lufthansa (18th), Aer Lingus (19th) and KLM (20th).
US carrier JetBlue has been identified as one of the 10 safest low-cost airlines for 2020
Meanwhile, AirlineRatings.com also identified the top 10 safest low-cost airlines for 2020.
British-based Flybe and US carriers JetBlue and Frontier and Australian all make the list.
Making up the rest of the top 10 are Air Arabia, HK Express, IndiGo, Volaris, Vueling, Westjet and Wizz.
Mr Thomas added: ‘All airlines have incidents every day and many are aircraft or engine manufacture issues instead of airline operational problems.
‘And it is the way the flight crew handles incidents that determines a good airline from an unsafe one.’
News of the world’s safest airlines comes just days after another annual report revealed that the number of people killed in large commercial aeroplane crashes fell by more than 50 per cent in 2019.
Dutch aviation consulting firm To70 said there were 86 accidents involving large commercial planes – including eight fatal incidents – resulting in 257 deaths last year.
In 2018, there were 160 accidents, including 13 fatal ones, resulting in 534 deaths, the firm said.
To70 said the fatal accident rate for large airplanes in commercial passenger air transport was just 0.18 fatal accident per million flights in 2019, or an average one fatal accident every 5.58 million flights, a significant improvement over 2018.