Qantas Airways ranked the world's safest airline
03 Jan 2020
Australian carrier Qantas Airways Ltd has been named the safest among a list of top 20 airlines in the world, published by AirlineRatings.com.
Qantas is followed by Air New Zealand and Taiwan's EVA Air as second and third best airlines.
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways - a new entry - ranks fourth. The rest of the top 10 is made up of Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Alaska Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Virgin Australia.
Ranked 10-20 are Hawaiian Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, TAP Air Portugal, SAS, Royal Jordanian, Swiss, Finnair, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus and KLM.
AirlineRatings.com said it takes into account factors, including audits by governing and industry bodies, crash and serious incident record, profitability and fleet age.
In a separate survey by OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd, PT Garuda Indonesia was crowned 2019s most punctual carrier. Panama’s Copa Airlines SA ranked second among airlines arriving or departing within 15 minutes of scheduled times. Japan’s Skymark Airlines Inc, Hawaiian Airlines Inc and Latam Airlines Group SA rounded out the top five.
Among the major United States (US) carriers, Delta Air Lines Inc was the only one to make it into the top 20.
“The number of global air passengers will double to 8.2 billion by 2037 thanks to economic growth and a swelling middle class, according to the International Air Transport Association. More than half of those fliers will come from the Asia-Pacific region, led by demand from countries like China and India. About 4.7 billion people are expected to travel this year, 4 per cent more than in 2019,” IATA said in December.
Among mega airports ranked by OAG – those catering to more than 30 million airline seats - Moscow Sheremetyevo topped the list for the best on-time performance last year. The ranking is based on the proportion of flights at each airport that arrive and leave within 15 minutes of scheduled times.
In contrast to the poor showing of its airlines, the US airports were top performers for punctuality. Six of the top 10 on-time airports were American, with Atlanta ranking fourth. Seattle came in fifth and Los Angeles seventh. John F Kennedy airport entered the top 10, while Bangkok and Amsterdam dropped out.