Which airlines are the safest to fly...

While Emirates airline tops one ranking for a second year, Air New Zealand leads on another – but which can be trusted?

Dubai-based Emirates Airlines was named the world’s safest airline for the second year running, with a risk index score of 95.5. The carrier came out on top in a study of 25 airlines conducted by the Hamburg-based Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC), but the centre’s methodology has been flagged by industry insiders as unreliable.

JACDEC’s assessment is based on each airline’s specific risk factors, accident history over 30 years and country-specific environment, plus a set minimum number of passenger-kilometres flown. Airlines that didn’t meet the criteria – for example, those that didn’t operate during the pandemic and accumulate enough passenger-kilometres – could not rank.

Etihad was among the airlines that did not meet the criteria to rank in JACDEC’s listing

JACDEC’s listing placed KLM as the second safest airline with 93.31 risk index, American carriers JetBlue and Delta Air Lines were ranked third (91.61) and fourth (91.55) respectively, while EasyJet was ranked fifth (91.28%) among the 25 airlines surveyed.

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Airline safety and product review website AirlineRatings.com’s annual list of the world’s safest airlines places Air New Zealand on top, with Emirates coming last in its ranking of 20.

AirlineRatings assessment is based on each airline’s crash rate over five years and serious incident record over two years, plus audits from aviation’s governing bodies, government audits, industry-leading safety initiatives, fleet age and Covid-19 safety protocols.