A list of the top 20 safest airlines and top 10 safest low cost airlines for 2016 from the 407 airlines monitored globally was announced on Wednesday.
The list was done by AirlineRatings.com, the world's safety and product rating website. On top of the safety airline list is Australia's Qantas, which has remained at the same position for the third year. It also has a fatality-free record in the jet era.
Those among the remainder of the top 20 are: Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airlines, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airline System, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia.
According to AirlineRatings.com, its rating system takes into account a range of factors related to audits from aviation's governing bodies and lead associations as well as government audits and the airline's fatality record. The website's editorial team also examined each airline's operational history, incident records and operational excellence to arrive at its top 20 safest airlines.
Of the 407 airlines surveyed, 148 have the top seven-star safety ranking but almost 50 have just three stars or less. There are 10 airlines with only one star and these airlines are from Indonesia, Nepal and Surinam, according to the website.
Responding to public interest, AirlineRatings.com also identified the top 10 safest low cost airlines, which are Aer Lingus, Flybe, HK Express, Jetblue, Jetstar Australia, Thomas Cook, TUI Fly, Virgin America, Volaris and Westjet.
According to the webiste, unlike a number of low cost carriers, these airlines have all passed the stringent International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) and have excellent safety records.
Airline safety has been under spotlight with some tragic and bizarre accidents last year. However, according to Aviation-Safety.net data, with the total 16 accidents and 560 fatalities, it was below the 10-year average of 31 accidents and 714 fatalities, according to AirlineRatings.com.
"Last year was also a significant improvement over 2014 when there were 21 fatal accidents with 986 fatalities," it said, adding that the world's airlines carried a record 3.6 billion passengers on 34 million flights in 2015.
