Qantas has topped the world’s safest airlines ranking for 2025 according to 42kft.com, a safety, environment, and product-focused airline ranking platform.
Out of 142 carriers analysed – covering 85 per cent of global air traffic – Qantas Airways was crowned the world’s safest airline. The Australian flag carrier has built a decades-long reputation for safety leadership and innovation, and in 2008, the UK Advertising Standards Association ruled that Qantas could rightly call itself the “World’s Most Experienced Airline”.
“Qantas’s safety performance is simply unmatched,” said 42kft.com editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas. “According to independent audits, Qantas pilots are considered the best trained, most disciplined, and most professional in the industry. The airline has led nearly every significant operational safety advance over the past 60 years.”
The full list
- Qantas
- Qatar Airways
- Air New Zealand
- Cathay Pacific Airways
- Emirates
- Virgin Australia / Virgin Atlantic
- Etihad Airways
- All Nippon Airways
- Lufthansa Group/Swiss
- EVA Air
- Air France
- British Airways
- SAS
- Korean Air
- Alaska Airlines
- TAP Portugal
- Hawaiian
- Finnair
- JAL
- Delta Airline Lines
In the low-cost sector, HK Express leads the 2025 list, praised for its exceptional safety structure modeled after parent company Cathay Pacific. Rounding out the Top 5 are Jetstar Group, easyJet, Ryanair, and AirAsia Group.
The full low-cost list
- HK Express
- Jetstar Group
- EasyJet
- Ryanair
- AirAsia Group
- Vietjet
- Cebu Pacific
- JetBlue
- Frontier
- Wizz
- Southwest
- Volaris
- Flydubai
- Norwegian
- Vueling
- Sun Country
- WestJet
- Indigo
- Eurowings
- Jet2
Thomas emphasised the rigour behind the rankings, saying the top 10 airlines were separated by narrow margins.
“Unlike traditional safety assessments that rely on certification checkboxes, 42kft.com uses a dynamic, data-driven methodology. We track real-world safety outcomes and update our rankings daily,” he explained.
World’s Safest Airlines Key criteria include recent incident records, fatal accident history, fleet age, results of FAA and EU audits, safety innovation and financial health.
*The 2008 ASA adjudication was based on a paper authored by 42kft.com Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Thomas which proved that Qantas had been responsible for 26 firsts in the safety innovations since 1940.
Earlier this year AirlineRatings.com, “the world’s only airline safety and product rating website”, announced Air New Zealand as the top of its list, followed by Qantas, with Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways and Emirates equal third and Virgin Australia finishing in fourth.
