Top 10 Safest Airlines In The World

Australia’s Qantas tops the list, which also includes UAE carriers Emirates and Etihad.

by Aarti Nagraj

January 12, 2015

The aviation industry witnessed a spate of tragic accidents in 2014, with the latest being AirAsia flight QZ8501, which disappeared on December 28 with 162 people on board.

The aircraft encountered bad weather while flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore, and officials are still searching for its remains in the Java Sea.

Meanwhile massive international search efforts are also still on to find Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared off the Asian country’s east coast on March 8, 2014. The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 passengers and crew aboard, vanished from radars less than an hour after take-off.

The shoot-down of another Malaysia Airlines flight, MH17, over Eastern Ukraine on July 17, which killed all 298 aboard, was also another tragic disaster.

In total, the year saw 21 fatal accidents with 986 fatalities, higher than the 10-year average, according to website airlineratings.com.

The safety and product rating website, which monitors 449 airlines, also recently announced its list of the top 10 safest airlines for 2015, based on audits from bodies such as the FAA and ICAO, government audits and the airline’s fatality record.

The list is topped by Australian carrier Qantas, which has a fatality-free record, and over its 94-year history, has “amassed an extraordinary record of firsts in safety and operations,” the website said.