Airlines + Airports

This Is the Safest Airline to Fly in 2020, According to a New Report (Video)

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Published on January 2, 2020

Australian carrier Qantas has been named the safest airline in the world for 2020.

In a ranking compiled by AirlineRatings.com, the airline which is currently testing ultra-long haul routes between Sydney and New York and London, nabbed the top spot after coming in first last year as well.

To evaluate the safest airlines in the world, the site, which monitors a total of 405 different airlines, looked at audits from industry and governing bodies that regulate aviation, an airline’s crash and serious incident record, as well as its profitability, fleet age, and safety initiatives.

For Qantas, AirlineRatings.com considered the carrier’s 99-year-history as the oldest continuously operating airline and its development of technology like the “Future Air Navigation System; the flight data recorder to monitor plane and later crew performance; automatic landings using Global Navigation Satellite System as well as precision approaches around mountains in the cloud using RNP.”

“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,” AirlineRatings.com Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Thomas said in a statement. “But Qantas is not alone. Long-established airlines such as Hawaiian and Finnair have perfect records in the jet era.”

The ranking comes just over a month after the site named Air New Zealand the best in the world in terms of overall product, which took into account safety, amenities, and passenger reviews.

For its part, Air New Zealand came in second in the latest safety ranking, followed by EVA Air, Etihad, and Qatar Airways.

“All airlines have incidents every day, and many are aircraft or engine manufacture issues, not airline operational problems,” Thomas added. “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. Our top 20 safest airlines 2020 are always at the forefront of safety innovation, operational excellence and the launching of new more advanced aircraft like the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787.”

When it comes to low-cost carriers, AirlineRatings.com focused on airlines that have passed the “stringent” International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit. The group named Air Arabia, Flybe, Frontier, HK Express, IndiGo, Jetblue, Volaris, Vueling, Westjet, and Wizz as the 10 safest in that category.

See the full list of AirlineRatings.com’s top 20 safest airlines for 2020: