Airlines including British Airways, Emirates and Qatar were ranked among the world’s 20 safest airlines, while Wizz and Flybe were ranked among the world’s safest low-cost airlines.
Qantas is the safest airline in the world for 2019, according to newly released rankings.
The Australian flag carrier was awarded the top spot by Airlineratings.com, which looked at a range of factors when determining the safest airlines, including audits from aviation’s governing and industry bodies, crash and serious incident records, and fleet age.
The world’s safest airlines, in alphabetical order are 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, and United Airlines, and the Virgin group of airlines (Atlantic and Australia), .
According to AirlineRatings.com Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Thomas, these airlines are standouts in the industry and are at the forefront of safety, innovation, and launching of new aircraft.
Responding to the public interest, the AirlineRatings.com editors also identified their Top 10 safest low-cost airlines. These are in alphabetical order: Flybe, Frontier, HK Express, Jetblue, Jetstar Australia / Asia, Thomas Cook, Volaris, Vueling, Westjet and Wizz.
To arrive at its Top Twenty, AirlineRatings.com takes into account the most important factors for safety. These include audits from aviation’s governing bodies and lead associations; government audits; airline’s crash and serious incident record; and the fleet age.
The world’s safest aircraft have also been revealed. The following nine commercial jets all have a fatality-free record: Boeing 717 (formerly the MD95), CRJ700/900/1000 regional jet, A380 superjumbo, Boeing 787, Boeing 747-8, Airbus A350, Bombardier C Series, A340 and the Airbus A320 NEO series.
In another story Ryanair has won the dubious honour of the UK’s least-liked short-haul airline for the sixth year running.
The results from a Which survey of airline passengers ranked Ryanair at the bottom of 19 carriers flying from the UK.
The top five were Guernsey-based Aurigny Air Service, Swiss Airlines, Jet2, Norwegian and Dutch carrier KLM.
The UK’s other large airlines, Easyjet and British Airways came in at 11th and 15th, respectively.
Easyjet beat British Airways’s scores for food and drink, customer service and value for money, but both received low ratings for seat comfort.
Ryanair faced strike action in 2018, cancelled flights but refused to offer passengers compensation and introduced new baggage rules three times.
The airline, which predicts it will carry 141m passengers this year, also left passengers unimpressed with its boarding processes, seat comfort, food and drink offering, and cabin environment.
Independent/BBC/AirlineRatings
