Air New Zealand bumps Qantas as the world’s safest airline

Sydney, Australia - February 12, 2019: Qantas and Air New Zealand aircraft tail.
Edited by Travel Weekly


    The Kiwi national carrier has knocked the Australian national carrier off its top spot as the world’s safest airline in the annual AirlineRatings.com list.

    Air New Zealand managed to bump Qantas “by the narrowest of margins”, according to the safety and product rating website. This came after Qantas did the same to Air New Zealand just last year.

    AirlineRatings.com’s editor-in-chief, Geoffrey Thomas, said “the safety margins between these top twenty-five airlines are very small,” with only 1.5 points between Air NZ and Qantas. Closely followed behind Qantas was its main Aussie competitor Virgin Australia while three Middle Eastern airlines, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and Emirates, followed.

    Air NZ’s chief operational integrity and safety officer captain David Morgan, told Stuff his airline was proud to have its commitment to safety recognised.

    “Safety is at the forefront of everything we do at Air New Zealand, and the safety of our customers and our people is always our biggest priority,” Morgan said.

    AirlineRatings.com considers an array of factors when making its judgement: serious incidents, recent fatal accidents, audits from aviation’s governing and industry bodies, profitability, industry-leading safety initiatives, expert pilot training assessment and fleet age.

    The rating website, however, does not consider things such as bird strikes, weather diversions, turbulence injuries and lightning strikes as the airline has no control over this.

    While Qantas was knocked off the top spot, it’s low-cost subsidiary Jetstar managed to win in the safest low-cost airlines list. Check out both lists below!

    Top 25 safest airlines for 2024

    1. Air New Zealand
    2. Qantas
    3. Virgin Australia
    4. Etihad Airways
    5. Qatar Airways
    6. Emirates
    7. All Nippon Airways
    8. Finnair
    9. Cathay Pacific Airways
    10. Alaska Airlines
    11. SAS
    12. Korean Air
    13. Singapore Airlines
    14. EVA Air
    15. British Airways
    16. Turkish Airlines
    17. TAP Air Portugal
    18. Lufthansa/Swiss Group
    19. KLM
    20. Japan Airlines
    21. Hawaiian Airlines
    22. American Airlines
    23. Air France
    24. Air Canada Group
    25. United Airlines

    Top 20 safest low-cost airlines for 2024

    1. Jetstar
    2. easyJet
    3. Ryanair
    4. Wizz Air
    5. Norwegian
    6. Frontier
    7. Vueling
    8. Vietjet
    9. Southwest
    10. Volaris
    11. flydubai
    12. AirAsia Group (AirAsia, AirAsia X, AirAsia Thailand, AirAsia Philippines and AirAsia India)
    13. Cebu Pacific
    14. Sun Country
    15. Spirit
    16. Westjet
    17. JetBlue
    18. Air Arabia
    19. Indigo
    20. Eurowings

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