Rain Man was right: Qantas named the world’s safest airline

Qantas has been named the world’s safest airline, after a year when fatal air accidents soared above the 10-year average. In a report published by AirlineRatings.com on Tuesday night, Qantas was lauded for amassing “an extraordinary record of firsts” in safety and operations over its 94-year history. Qantas, which AirlineRatings.com said was now also accepted as the world’s most experienced airline, was praised as the leader in terms of real-time monitoring of its engines across its fleet using satellite communications. Making up the remainder of the top 10 in alphabetical order were Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines.

Certainly, 21 fatal accidents with 986 fatalities - higher than the 10-year average - is sickening. However, the world’s airlines carried a record 3.3 billion passengers on 27 million flights.

An AirlineRatings.com report

AirlineRatings.com’s rating system takes into account a range of factors related to audits from aviations governing bodies as well as government audits and the airlines fatality record. The report rates 449 airlines, including low-cost carriers. The report comes after what was “in no doubt” a bad year for airline safety, AirlineRatings.com said, adding that 2014 included some of the industry’s most tragic and bizarre incidents - including the loss of MH370 and MH17. AirlineRatings.com said the high number of deaths came despite the number of accidents for 2014 being at a record low 21 - one for every 1.3 million flights.

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