Every year since 2016 (see here from my 2016 post and here for 2017 one), I blogged about top ranked airlines from 2 sources – Airlineratings.com and JADEC. Here’s the update for 2018. The above pictures show JACDEC’s top 20 safest airlines and airlineratings.com award winners in various categories since 2016.
For your information, there are 2 popular rankings in the airline industry – The rankings from AirlineRatings.com and Germany’s Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre, or JACDEC. While each has their own evaluation criteria, while it’s been criticised that some refused to disclose details of their evaluation criteria, they do provide some good information for all travellers.
JACDEC handed out some surprises in their 2018 update (below is extracted from their site) –
For example, both Cathay Pacific (down 11 places to now 12th) and Singapore Airline (now 14th) have dropped significantly in the 2018 rank.
This year’s JACDEC Airline Safety Ranking marks a paradigm shift. It now compares the largest 100 airlines by their key safety parameters, displacing the older list of 60 airlines. The complete list together with a comprehensive safety analysis of the past year will be available in the February 2018 issue of the German aviation magazine Aero International. (available in German language only)
Just some key factors that are highlighting our new Risk-Index.
- The Ranking covers 100 instead of 60 airlines.
- The calculation parameters were substantially broadened from 9 to 33 influential factors.
- We now take systemic risk factors into account.
- We revised our time-weighting factor (EMA) allowing a more realistic approach to lessen the influence of past accidents/incidents.
The new JACDEC Risk-Index covers now more than 30 parameters.
Their full guide of explanations about the new Safety Index HERE
Now for some airlingratings.com 2018 results
According to the airlineratings.com site, ratings are awarded through stringent audits from the International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which evaluate both the operational management and control systems of an airline, as well as a country’s airline infrastructure and regulation. Below are their summarised results:-
The world’s top 20 safest airlines (in alphabetical order)
Click on the links to read Traveller’s reviews of the airlines (extracted from Travellers’com.au article) – in () are related reviews
Air New Zealand (Review: Premium economy)
Alaska Airlines (Review: Economy class)
All Nippon Airways (Review: Premium economy)
British Airways (Review: Economy class)
Cathay Pacific Airways (Review: A350 premium economy)
Emirates (Review: Economy class)
Etihad Airways (Review: Economy class)
EVA Air
Finnair
Hawaiian Airlines (Review: Economy extra comfort class)
Japan Airlines (Review: Premium economy)
KLM
Lufthansa (Review: Economy class)
Qantas (Review: Dreamliner business class)
Royal Jordanian Airlines
Scandinavian Airline System (Review: Premium economy)
Singapore Airlines (Review: Economy class)
Swiss (Review: Business class)
Virgin Atlantic (Review: Premium economy)
Virgin Australia (Review: Business class)
The world’s least safe airlines (alphabetical)
Air Koryo
Bluewing Airlines
Buddha Air
Nepal Airlines
Tara Air
Trigana Air Service
Yeti Airlines
Worth mentioning and I consider it a handy useful tool, is that airlineratings.com in addition to a handy find your airline safety related details index here, just introduced a new airline safety comparison tool for a very comprehensive list of airlines in which you can select and compare various safety ratings (from IOSA, FAA, EU, Fatality free, etc) just like comparing various consumer products (like different microwave models).
Credits and Sources:
Cathay falls 11 places in safety rankings, hits out at ‘unreliable’ evaluator. (2018). South China Morning Post. Retrieved 20 February 2018, from http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2129898/cathay-pacific-falls-11-places-safety-rankings-hits-out
Airline Safety Ranking 2018 » JACDEC. (2018). Jacdec.de. Retrieved 17 February 2018, from http://www.jacdec.de/airline-safety-ranking-2018/
Airline & Safety Ratings – Airline Ratings. (2018). Airline Ratings. Retrieved 17 February 2018, from https://www.airlineratings.com/airline-ratings/
Compare Airline Safety Ratings – Airline Ratings. (2018). Airline Ratings. Retrieved 17 February 2018, from https://www.airlineratings.com/safety-rating-tool/
Schultz, A., & Schultz, A. (2018). World’s safest, and least safe, airlines named. Traveller. Retrieved 17 February 2018, from http://www.traveller.com.au/worlds-safest-and-least-safe-airlines-named-in-2018-rankings-h0d9bd