Revealed: Top 20 safest airlines in the world for 2019

Australian carrier Qantas has been chosen as the world’s safest airline for 2019 by aviation website AirlineRatings.com.

The website selected 20 carriers from across the world using a combination of factors including audits from aviation’s governing and industry bodies; government audits; airline’s crash and serious incident record; profitability, industry-leading safety initiatives, and fleet age.

The top 20 safest airlines “have always been at the forefront of safety innovation, launching of new aircraft and they have become a byword for excellence”, AirlineRatings.com said.

It only looked at serious incidents in making its determinations, according to AirlineRatings.com editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas.

“All airlines have incidents every day and many are aircraft manufacture issues, not airline operational problems,” he said.

“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.”

“And some countries incident reporting systems are weak further complicating matters,” he added.

Highlighting Qantas, the website said that over its 98-year history, “the world’s oldest continuously operating airline has amassed an amazing record of firsts in operations and safety and is now accepted as the industry’s most experienced airline”.

All the other 19 airlines were listed in an alphabetical order.

Among regional airlines, Emirates and Qatar Airways made it to the top 20 rankings.

AirlineRatings.com also announced its lowest ranked (one and two stars) airlines which are: Ariana Afghan Airlines, Bluewing Airlines, Kam Air, and Trigana Air Service.

THE TOP 20 SAFEST AIRLINES FOR 2019 (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 Airlines

KLM

Lufthansa

Qantas

Qatar

Scandinavian Airline System

Singapore Airlines

Swiss

United Airlines

Virgin group of airlines (Atlantic and Australia)

TOP 10 SAFEST LOW-COST AIRLINES FOR 2019 (in alphabetical order)

Flybe (UK)

Frontier (US)

HK Express (Hong Kong)

Jetblue (US)

Jetstar Australia / Asia

Thomas Cook (UK)

Volaris (Mexico)

Vueling (Spain)

Westjet (Canada)

Wizz (Hungary)