Qantas retained for the third consecutive year the title of “safest airline in the world”, according to the latest ranking by AirlineRatings who studied 407 airlines.

No ranking for 19 companies, all of which are almost as safe. They are listed hereafter by alphabetical order as their operational security level is very similar: Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airways (ANA), American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Emirates Airlines, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia.

No surprise either in the top ten safest low-cost airlines according AirlineRatings: alphabetically, Aer Lingus, Flybe, Hong Kong Express, JetBlue Airways, Jetstar Australia, Thomas Cook, TUI Fly, Virgin America, Volaris and WestJet. The site states that “unlike a number of low cost airlines, these companies have all passed the IATA Safety Audit (IOSA).”

The site states that by selecting Qantas, they highlighted the fact that “in its history of 95 years, making it the oldest company in the world to operate without interruption, it has accumulated an extraordinary series of firsts in operations and security” (and they cite the introduction of the flight data recorder to monitor the aircraft and later the pilots, the automatic landing guided by GNNS or mountain precision approaches with RNP). Qantas was also a pioneer in real-time satellite monitoring of the state of the engines, allowing it to detect problems before they escalate.