Dubai: Emirates and Etihad Airways have been named among the safestairlines on earth, according to an annual study of the world’s biggestairlines.
According to AirlineRatings, the two UAE-based carriers are among the“who’s who” in the aviation industry for 2018 and are leading the charge interms of safety, innovation and fleet expansion. They’re the only Gulfcarriers to make it into the top 20.
The aircraft safety and product rating site has reviewed more than 400carriers and rated each of them based on crash data, as well as informationand audits from governments and regulatory bodies in the aviation industry.
Between 2014 and 2017, the rating site singled out Qantas as the safest inthe world, but this time, it has opted to rank the top 20 carriers equally.
The rest of the 20 safest airlines for 2018, in alphabetical order, are:
Air New ZealandAlaska AirlinesAll Nippon AirwaysBritish AirwaysCathay Pacific AirwaysEVA AirFinnairHawaiian AirlinesJapan AirlinesKLMLufthansaQantasRoyal Jordanian AirlinesScandinavian Airline SystemSingapore AirlinesSwissVirgin AtlanticVirgin Australia.
AirlineRatings editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas said the 20 airlines are“standouts in the industry and are at the forefront of safety, innovationand launching of new aircraft.”
“For instance, Australia’s Qantas has been recognised by the BritishAdvertising Standards Association in a test case as the world’s mostexperienced airline.”
“Qantas has been the lead airline in virtually every major operationalsafety advancement over the past 60 years and has not had a fatality in thejet era,” said Thomas. “But Qantas is not alone. Long established airlinessuch as Hawaiian and Finnair have perfect records in the jet era.”
AirlineRatings rated each airline up to seven stars for safety, and bothEtihad and Emirates were given the highest rating. They also earned topmarks for maintaining a fatality-free record for the past ten years andmeeting the standards set by the International Civil AviationOrganisation, IATA Operational Safety Audit, among others.