AirlineRatings.com has published its list of the 20 safest airlines in 2022 and media outlets around the world have run with it, but I’m not running with it. I can’t even figure it out…
I’m Not Convinced About World’s Safest Airlines In 2022…
AirlineRatings.com calls itself the “world’s only airline safety, and product rating website,” then proceed to rank the top-20 airlines in 2022:
- Air New Zealand
- Etihad Airways
- Qatar Airways
- Singapore Airlines
- TAP Air Portugal
- SAS
- Qantas
- Alaska Airlines
- EVA Air
- Virgin Australia/Atlantic
- Cathay Pacific Airways
- Hawaiian Airlines
- American Airlines
- Lufthansa/Swiss Group
- Finnair
- Air France/KLM Group
- British Airways
- Delta Air Lines
- United Airlines
- Emirates
Quite a list…
These airlines are “standouts in the industry and are at the forefront of safety, innovation, and launching of new aircraft.
AirlineRatings.com Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Thomas explains the process for ranking safety:
- crashes over 5 years
- serious incidents over two years
- audits from aviation’s governing bodies and lead associations
- government audits
- fleet age
- COVID protocols
Thomas explained:
“However all airlines have incidents every day, and many are aircraft or engine manufacture issues, not airline operational problems. It is the way the flight crew handles these incidents that determines a good airline from an unsafe one.”
But isn’ the occurrence of incidents precisely what leads to lower rankings, even if the crew responds well?
So why Air New Zealand? AirlineRatings notes Air New Zealand “operates in some of the most challenging weather conditions and remote environments.”
“It is also leading the way with technical innovation and has a very young fleet with an average age of just 6.8 years.”
Thomas added:
“Air New Zealand is a stand-out airline with a firm focus on safety and its customers and over the past 18 months, COVID-19 has brought another new dimension to the challenges the industry faces.
“Air New Zealand has excelled across the broad safety spectrum never losing sight of the smallest detail while caring for its flight crews who have worked under significant stress.”
How about the other 20? Thomas said, “There is very little between the top 20, they are all standouts.” Alrighty then…
Qantas is no longer #1 because of an incident in Perth in 2018. Then, two 737s almost collided. A report blaming pilot error was not released until after the 2020 numbers had been released.
Thinking About Airline Safety
Some additional thoughts about the list, then I’ll make a general observation:
- Nice that Emirates makes the list after the recent 777 incident over Dubai…
- Since when are Virgin Australia and Virgin Atlantic the same airline?
- The Lufthansa Group is composed of five distinct airlines with different employees and pilot policies.
- Air France and KLM are also two very different airlines/
- How can Air New Zealand be number one when it has pared back its schedule so tremendously during the pandemic?
- COVID-19 protocols, which played into the rankings, included rewarding airlines for eliminating meal service (no wonder Air New Zealand won)
- How were the others ranked amongst themselves?
When we think about airline safety, my thoughts are simpler:
- Airlines are remarkably safe modes of transport.
- I don’t feel any more comfortable stepping onto an airplane because of a nebulous list of ranked “safe” carriers that smells of a publicity stunt.
- The issues on this list I noted above make me discount the list itself.
- However, I have no qualms flying any of these airlines, even Emirates (as well as those that didn’t make it).
CONCLUSION
You should be skeptical of lists like this, but I think the takeaway is always the same: flying is remarkably safe and I feel far safer onboard virtually any commercial aircraft than I do driving my own car.
image: Air New Zealand
Hate to say it, but we haven’t had a commercial crash in the US since the Buffalo event in 09. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s it seemed you were always hearing about plane crashes.
As you said I consider air travel much safer than driving a car. We should appreciate the efforts of airlines, their employees and flight crews in keeping us safe. When we get upset about delays and such, which we all do, we should think how lucky we are to have this safe mode of transportation available to most of us at reasonable rates.
Are size of fleet and volume of flights accounted for? If so the US big three would likely rank very high. Also, fleet age may help but it doesn’t replace good piloting.
This list seems absurd. There is probably little difference in the first 30. I mean, where is JAL and ANA? The only list that matters would be the top 20 most dangerous as they would most certainly be outliers and far removed from the safe list. Was like Santa Claus was involved in creating this?
And if operating in difficult environments is a big criteria we should see Druk Air at number one, lol.
Rain man says qantas is still the best
How about a list of the most dangerous airlines? I’m sure sunwing would top that, especially with that scandal playing out right now
I would love Matt to write about the influencer flight from Montreal to Cancun via Sunwing …. any thoughts how the situation could be handled differently?
Just wrote a story on it! Didn’t express opinion (yet) though.
I’ve been following it for a couple of days now, especially that it’s the most talked about thing in Montreal these days.
The latest is that many of these passengers have tested positive (some have also falsified COVID test results prior to going and one was already positive).
Needless to say, Quebecers are pissed that these people get to do that while the rest have to sit there and watch while being in a strict lockdown.
No one in Quebec has to sit and watch while in lockdown. Not traveling is a choice people make. Quebeckers are still free to travel.
To me, it is a bit stupid to add Emirates to the list because they literally just had a horrible safety incident just a couple of weeks ago. They set the autopilot to zero and they were flying above homes at 75 feet. That is a horrible incident and as you said Matthew that air transportation couldn’t be safer, I totally agree. But this was still a bad incident.
Emirates belongs closer to the naughty list than the top 20. Not only that recent 777 incident, but there have been other more “minor” issues reported in the past several years that lead one to believe that they are fortunate not to have had a major incident. As flying is very safe in 2022, it can be tough to determine who is “the safest” when a good percentage of the airlines would qualify. But you make a ton of great points about the inconsistences that exist within this ranking which include some inaccurate assumptions.
As another commenter noted: aviation has come a long way and the industry has done a terrific job. Back in the 70’s, 80’s and even the 90’s there were frequent accidents worldwide. And here in the US, we often didn’t hear much about crashes in other countries because we would have as many as 1-2 per month domestically. Yet, even then, flying was statistically safer than any other mode of transport. Now, it’s many times more so.
Incidences (bad things happened) must be accompanied by some kind of exposure variable in the calculations so you get a rate. Exposure could be time an aircraft is operating at a gate or in flight.
There are massive issues with this list.
First the criteria for earning their maximum of 7 stars in their safety rating scheme and the criteria being used here are different.
Second focusing only on fatal accidents leaves open a huge gap. For example the crash of Emirates 521 in August of 2016. This crash had no crew or passenger fatalities but did result in the death of a firefighter and numerous serious injuries. That no one died on the airplane is much more attributable to luck than it is to anything Emirates did and the crash was the result of very serious failures by the pilots. Incidents like this simply cannot be ignored when talking about airline safety. Especially when you consider the extremely serious pilot error incident that Emirates recently had.
Third this rating system doesn’t look at all at the training or hiring protocols in place at the airline. If your hiring pilots with only MPLs (multi pilot license) that have some 250 hours of total time that’s dramatically less safe than airlines whose average new hire has 4-5000TT including over 1000 hours of turbine time or flying at another airline. Does the airline have a robust training curriculum that goes beyond the bare bones minimums by including items like recovery from unusual attitudes in simulators that are certified to properly simulate post stall behavior of the aircraft in question?
Fourth does the airline have a robust safety culture that incorporates and actually practices good cockpit resource management (CRM)? Does it have a safety reporting system that encourages the penalty free reporting of errors so that they can be analyzed and where required changes made to trap those errors in the future? Does the airline actively learn from industry events?
Fifth their system awards a maximum of 7 stars. How then do you breakout airlines which all receive the same ranking? Fleet age isn’t an actual indicator of safety because a fleet with an average age of 6.8 years and one with an average age of 10.2 years creates a difference without distinction. Technology? You simply can’t automatically assume that a “technological innovation” at one airline automatically makes it safer than another airline. Imagine for example an airline that operates exclusively to large airports that have a CAT III capable ILS on every runway. Now compare that to one like Alaska that operates into numerous airports where ILS approaches aren’t possible and instead has developed RNAV/RNP approaches to those airports. Airline #1 isn’t less safe because it hasn’t introduced a technological innovation that it has no need for.
Sixth COVID protocols. Frankly it’s utter nonsense. To say that an airline like ANZ ranks higher because it has eliminated all meal and drink service than one that has continued it is ridiculous. What if ANZ grounded 100% of their flights because hey if you don’t ever fly then nothing bad can ever happen right? Would that make them a safer airline?
Seventh the operating environment. To say that an airline like Alaska or ANZ is safer because they fly into more challenging airports is so obviously false that I can just stop here (to quote a favorite movie of mine and bonus points if you can tell me where the quote comes from) “ without further eloquence”.
Eighth they rank low cost carriers separately which is obviously dumb. What does the business model have to do with safety?
Frankly their entire ranking is nothing more than a publicity stunt and deserves to be dropped in the waste bin with the rest of the rubbish. Because it is rubbish.
Excellent summary!!! Always appreciate your inputs!
Thank you! Very kind
‘The Quiet Man”. Mind you, I googled. 🙂
You are correct sir!