AIR SAFETY

The world’s safest airlines and jetliners

The safest airlines

A Finnair Airbus A320

Finnair and Air New Zealand have been named the world’s two safest airlines based on their performance over the last three decades.

That is the finding of the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre's (JACDEC) annual safety index, which measures safety in the aviation industry.  JACDEC ranks airlines by incidents and accidents from the last 30 years and compares that with revenue passenger kilometres and benchmarks like the IATA Operational Safety Audit.

The top place has been given to Finnair which was ranked second last year. Finnair, which is 55% owned by the Finnish Government, is the fifth oldest airline in the world and has not had a fatal accident since 1963. It carries 9 million passengers a year to 70 domestic and international destinations with 44 aircraft, mostly Airbus A320, A330 and A 340 aircraft plus four Boeing 757 aircraft. It has 11 A350s on order.

Air New Zealand aircraft at Auckland International Airport

Second place for safety on the JACDEC index is Air New Zealand which has not had a fatal accident on a scheduled service since 1963, although the airline has had fatal training accidents and a fatal scenic flight accident in 1979.

Air New Zealand operates 50 aircraft including 17 Airbus A320 and B737, B747, B767 and B777 aircraft with orders for 20 new aircraft and 34 options. The airline’s longest route is Auckland to London via Los Angeles. Until the recent closure of its Beijing-London service the airline had a round-the-world network.

The safest aircraft

Boeing or Airbus? Many minds are made up on this question. Some say Airbus and some say Boeing.

It has been said by some that Boeings are designed by experts so that they can be flown by idiots, while Airbus is designed by idiots but must be flown by experts. But the accident statistics show that there is little difference between the products of the two manufacturers. In fact, the race between the two to build the world’s safest airliners is very tight.

An Air France Embraer ERJ 145

On a list of jetliners with a nil passenger fatality record a surprise entrant holds first place. The Embraer RJ 135/145 from Brazil is way out front with 15 million hours flown by 1,100 aircraft since 1996 with not a single fatal accident. 

Second place goes to the Boeing 777 with 942 delivered since 1995 and no scalps. Third place goes to the Airbus A340 with 375 deliveries since 1993. Other aircraft that have never claimed passenger lives include the Canadair CRJ 700/900, Boeing 717, MD-90, Boeing 747SP (only 45 made since 1976) and the Fokker 70.

So where does all this take us? It takes us to the conclusion that airline flying is the safest form of transportation ever devised. It is safer even than staying at home. The credit for this goes to the dedicated people who design, build, fly and maintain these winged magic carpets.