Qantas, Virgin Australia and Air New Zealand have been named among the safest airlines in 2018 out of the top 20 according to this year’s annual rating system.

As the world’s only safety and product rating website, AirlineRatings.com monitors 409 airlines each year and ranks them based on a seven-star rating system that looks at the number of crashes, fatalities, groundings and data from the world’s governing aviation body.

In tow with Qantas, other notable mentions in the Top 20 include British Airways, Hawaiin Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Etihad Airways and Cathay Pacific Airways.

“Qantas has been the lead airline in virtually every major operational safety advancement over the past 60 years and has not had a fatality in the jet era,” said Geoffrey Thomas, AirlineRatings.com’s editor-in-chief.

“But Qantas is not alone. Long established airlines such as Hawaiian and Finnair have perfect records in the jet era.”

The Top 20 Safest Airlines in 2018
(in alphabetical order)

•  Air New Zealand
• Alaska Airlines
• All Nippon Airways
• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific Airways
• Emirates
• Etihad Airways
• EVA Air
• Finnair
• Hawaiian Airlines
• Japan Airlines
• KLM
• Lufthansa
• Qantas
• Royal Jordanian Airlines
• Scandinavian Airline System
• Singapore Airlines
• Swiss
• Virgin Atlantic
• Virgin Australia

“All airlines have incidents every day and many are aircraft manufacture issues, not airline operational problems,” said Mr Thomas.

“And it is the way the flight crew handles incidents that determines a good airline from an unsafe one. So just lumping all incidents together is very misleading. Our Top 20 safest airlines are always at the forefront of safety innovation, operational excellence and the launching of new more advanced aircraft like the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787.”

Responding to public demand, AirlineRatings.com has also released its annual Top 10 low-cost airlines rankings, based on stringent international Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) safety records.

Top 10 Safest Low-Cost Airlines

• Aer Lingus
• Flybe, Frontier
• HK Express
• Jetblue
• Jetstar Australia/ Jetstar Asia
• Thomas Cook
• Virgin America
• Vueling
• Westjet

The website also revealed those airlines which have been ranked as the lowest and least safe (airlines that received one star or less).

The Least Safe Airlines of 2018

• Air Koryo
• Bluewing Airlines
• Buddha Air
• Nepal Airlines
• Tara Air
• Trigana Air Service
• Yeti Airlines

In this year’s AirlineRatings.com awards, Air New Zealand took out the top spot as Airline of the Year, with Virgin Australia offering Best Business Class followed by Qantas who took out best Inflight Catering Award internationally as well as Best Domestic Service and Best Lounges awards.