Qantas is the world’s safest airline after a year that saw some of the most “tragic and bizarre incidents” in modern aviation history, says industry website AirlineRatings.com.
The site, which rates the safety and service of 449 airlines using a seven-star rating system, has released its top-10 safest airlines for 2015.
The others (in alphabetical order) are Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific Airways, British Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines.
Qantas subsidiary Jetstar made it onto the AirlineRatings list of the top-10 low-cost airlines, which also includes Aer Lingus, Alaska Airlines, Icelandair, Jetblue, Kulula.com, Monarch Airlines, Thomas Cook, TUI Fly and Westjet.
The website, which launched in 2013 amid some debate about its ratings methods, says its safety evaluations take into account airlines’ operational histories, incident and fatality records, “operational excellence”, and audits by industry and government bodies.
“Qantas has been the lead airline in virtually every major advancement in airline safety over the past 60 years,” said AirlineRatings.com editor Geoffrey Thomas.
A report on the website said 2014 was a bad year for airline safety, with 21 fatal accidents and 986 deaths – higher than the 10-year average.
“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 1597 when airlines carried only 141 million passengers – 5 per cent of today’s number.”
It said the number of fatal accidents was actually at a record low in 2014, but incidents involving two Malaysian Airlines flights – MH370, which disappeared in March, and MH17, shot down over the Ukraine in July – accounted for 537 of the total 986 deaths over the year.
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A total of 149 airlines surveyed by AirlineRatings.com were awarded the top seven-star safety ranking, with a fuller explanation of the rating system provided on its site. Almost 50 airlines were given three stars or less, while five airlines achieved just one star for safety: Agni Air, Kam Air, Nepal Airlines, Scat and Tara Air.
In December, AirlineRatings.com named Air New Zealand as its airline of the year for 2015 for overall service, including in-flight innovations, financial performance, operational safety and staff motivation. That top-10 list also included Qantas, Etihad, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, EVA Air, Lufthansa, All Nippon Airways and British Airways.
