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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