Qantas named world's safest airline

The Australian national carrier was praised for its ‘amazing record of firsts in operations and safety’

Qantas has been named the world's safest airline in a new ranking (Qantas)

Qantas has been named the world’s safest airline in a new ranking.

The Australian flag carrier took the top spot in the 2020 Safest Airlines ranking by AirlineRatings.com, which monitors hundreds of airlines.

The site measures airline safety on factors including audits by the government and industry bodies, crash and serious incident record, profitability, safety initiatives and fleet age.

Qantas was praised for its “amazing record of firsts in operations and safety”.

“The Australian airline has been a leader in the development of Future Air Navigation System; the flight data recorder to monitor plane and later crew performance; automatic landings using Global Navigation Satellite System as well as precision approaches around mountains in the cloud using RNP,” said the site.

AirlineRatings ranked the world’s safest 20 airlines alongside the 10 safest low-cost airlines.

Following Qantas to make up the top five were Air New Zealand, Eva Air, Etihad and Qatar Airways.

Rounding out the top 10 were Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Alaska Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways and Virgin Australia.

These airlines are “standouts in the industry and are at the forefront of safety, innovation, and launching of new aircraft”, according to AirlineRatings.com editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas.

The safest 10 low-cost airlines were named as Air Arabia, Flybe, Frontier, HK Express, IndiGo, Jetblue, Volaris, Vueling, Westjet and Wizz.

World’s safest airlines 2020

1. Qantas
2. Air New Zealand
3. EVA Air
4. Etihad
5. Qatar Airways
6. Singapore Airlines
7. Emirates
8. Alaska Airlines
9. Cathay Pacific Airways
10. Virgin Australia
11. Hawaiian Airlines
12. Virgin Atlantic Airlines
13. TAP Portugal
14. SAS
15. Royal Jordanian
16. Swiss
17. Finnair
18. Lufthansa
19. Aer Lingus
20. KLM

Safest low-cost airlines

1. Air Arabia
2. Flybe
3. Frontier
4. HK Express
5. IndiGo
6. Jetblue
7. Volaris
8. Vueling
9. Westjet 
10. Wizz