Has Released Its List Of The Safest And Least Safe Carriers

AirlineRatings.com has named Qantas as its safest airline for 2020 with the release of its Top Twenty safest airlines and Top Ten safest low-cost airlines from the 405 airlines it monitors.

The top twenty are the who's who of airlines and are in numerical order: Qantas, Air New Zealand, EVA Air, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Alaska Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways, Virgin Australia, Hawaiian Airlines, Virgin Atlantic Airlines, TAP Portugal, SAS, Royal Jordanian, Swiss, Finnair, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus and KLM.

"These airlines are clear standouts in the airline industry and are at the forefront of safety," said AirlineRatings.com Editor-in-Chief, Geoffrey Thomas. "For instance, Australia's Qantas has been recognized by the British Advertising Standards Association in a test case in 2008 as the world's most experienced airline."

"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," Thomas said.

AirlineRatings.com editors also identified their Top Ten safest low-cost airlines. These are in alphabetical order: Air Arabia, Flybe, Frontier, HK Express, IndiGo, Jetblue, Volaris, Vueling, Westjet and Wizz.

In making its selections, AirlineRatings.com editors and its industry advisors take into account numerous critical factors that include: audits from aviation's governing bodies and lead associations; government audits; airline's crash and serious incident record, fleet age, financial position and pilot training and culture.

AirlineRatings.com editors only look at serious incidents in making its determinations. "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. So just lumping all incidents together is very misleading," Thomas said.

(Source: AirlineRatings.com news release. Image from file)

FMI: www.airlineratings.com