Australia’s flagship carrier, Qantas Airlines, has been named the world’s safest airline for 2019.
Thanks to a 60-year streak as a fatality-free commercial jetliner, Qantas tops Airlineratings.com’s latest ranking of the top 20 airlines in the world.
“It is extraordinary that 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,” said editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas in a statement.
Along with being the world’s oldest continuously operating airline, editors note that Qantas has always been a leader in aviation, be it in the development of the Future Air Navigation System; the use of flight data recorders; automatic landings; and in real-time monitoring of engines.
“But Qantas is not alone. Long established airlines such as Hawaiian and Finnair have perfect records in the jet era,” Thomas adds.
Along with Qantas, other top-performing airlines include Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, and Virgin Atlantic, among others.
For the ranking, editors looked at audits from aviation governing bodies and lead associations; government audits; airline crash and serious incident records; fleet age; and profitability.
Here are the world’s safest mega airlines 2019 (listed in alphabetical order)
Air New Zealand
Alaska Airlines
All Nippon Airways
American Airlines
Austrian Airlines
British Airways
Cathay Pacific Airways
Emirates
EVA Air
Finnair
Hawaiian Airline
KLM
Lufthansa
Qantas
Qatar Airways
Scandinavian Airline System
Singapore Airlines
Swiss
United Airlines
Virgin group of airlines (Atlantic and Australia)
Top 10 safest low-cost airlines of 2019 in alphabetical order include:
Flybe, Frontier
HK Express
Jetblue
Jetstar Australia / Asia
Thomas Cook
Volaris
Vueling
Westjet
Wizz (AFP)
