Air New Zealand bumps Qantas as the world’s safest airline
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
- Air New Zealand
- Qantas
- Virgin Australia
- Etihad Airways
- Qatar Airways
- Emirates
- All Nippon Airways
- Finnair
- Cathay Pacific Airways
- Alaska Airlines
- SAS
- Korean Air
- Singapore Airlines
- EVA Air
- British Airways
- Turkish Airlines
- TAP Air Portugal
- Lufthansa/Swiss Group
- KLM
- Japan Airlines
- Hawaiian Airlines
- American Airlines
- Air France
- Air Canada Group
- United Airlines
Top 20 safest low-cost airlines for 2024
- Jetstar
- easyJet
- Ryanair
- Wizz Air
- Norwegian
- Frontier
- Vueling
- Vietjet
- Southwest
- Volaris
- flydubai
- AirAsia Group (AirAsia, AirAsia X, AirAsia Thailand, AirAsia Philippines and AirAsia India)
- Cebu Pacific
- Sun Country
- Spirit
- Westjet
- JetBlue
- Air Arabia
- Indigo
- Eurowings
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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