Ranked: The 20 Safest Airlines In The World

AirlineRatings.com has just released its annual list of the world’s 20 safest airlines. The list ranks the largest and best-known carriers—as well as the safest low-cost airlines.

It’s been a rough few years for the airlines, from the massive slump in air travel caused by the pandemic to high-profile scenes like last week’s meltdown for Southwest Airlineswhich canceled thousands of flights across the U.S. during the holiday season and has sparked an investigation by the Department of Transportation.

But if there’s any good news when it comes to the airlines, it’s the safety of air travel today: “I would say the airline system is incredibly safe,” says Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of AirlineRatings.comwhich monitors the safety and in-flight product for 385 airlines.

“The Covid pandemic has put [an] enormous strain on airlines across the globe with lengthy delays and flight cancellations testing even the most faithful and forgiving passengers,” says Thomas. “From a safety perspective, airlines have done a remarkable job in getting their pilots and cabin crew to operational flying, and their maintenance engineers are the unsung heroes who have looked after the aircraft. There have been no accidents over the pandemic period attributable to Covid.”

In coming up with its list, AirlineRatings.com considered a range of factors, including fleet age, serious incidents, fatalities, audits from aviation’s governing and industry bodies, industry-leading safety initiatives and more.

“Our top twenty safest airlines are all standouts in the industry and are at the forefront of safety, innovation and launching of new aircraft,” says Thomas. “In fact, the safety margins between these top twenty airlines are very small—they are all outstanding airlines.”

Thomas says the site only looked at serious incidents in making its determinations. “All airlines have incidents every day and many are aircraft manufacture issues, not airline operational problems,” says Thomas. “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.”

Coming out on top this year is Qantas, which has been named the safest airline for 2023. It replaces last year’s winner, Air New Zealand.

It’s not the first time that Qantas has won: The 100-year-old Australian carrier was named the world’s safest airline from 2014 to 2017. In 2018, it was in the top 20 when AirlineRatings awarded 20 airlines jointly. Then it won again for three years in a row: 2019, 2020 and 2021.

A number of U.S. carriers also made the top 20 list. Alaska Airlines came in first among the U.S. carriers, followed by Hawaiian Airlines, United, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines.

“No big surprises this year with the major airlines continuing to pour resources into their pilot training and aircraft,” says Thomas. “The burden has been far greater than normal, bringing aircraft back from storage and [doing] additional training to get pilots back to work after Covid.”

AirlineRatings’ annual report also included the 20 safest low-cost airlines, with the carriers listed alphabetically. U.S. carriers Allegiant, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit and Westjet made the cut.

Scroll down to see both lists: the world’s safest airlines and the safest low-cost airlines.

The Top 20 Safest Airlines For 2023

1. Qantas
2. Air New Zealand
3. Etihad Airways
4. Qatar Airways
5. Singapore Airlines
6. TAP Air Portugal
7. Emirates
8. Alaska Airlines
9. EVA Air
10. Virgin Australia/Atlantic
11. Cathay Pacific Airways
12. Hawaiian Airlines
13. SAS
14. United Airlines
15. Lufthansa/Swiss Group
16. Finnair
17. British Airways
18. KLM
19. American Airlines
20. Delta Air Lines

The 20 Safest Low-Cost Airlines For 2023

*in alphabetical order

• Air Arabia
• AirAsia Group (AirAsia, AirAsia X, AirAsia Thailand, AirAsia Philippines and AirAsia India)
• Allegiant
• Air Baltic
• easyjet
• FlyDubai
• Frontier
• Indigo
• Jetstar Group
• Jetblue
• Ryanair
• Scoot
• Southwest
• Spicejet
• Spirit
• Vueling
• Vietjet
• you will fly
• Westjet
• Wizz

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