World’s safest airlines - 2026 edition

[MEL_Traveller]

So here’s the list, courtesy of news.com.au: https://www.news.com.au/travel/trav...t/news-story/23bd49ce36377bad148748c215d402ff

I don’t understand how there are two lists… safest in the legacy and LCC sectors. Either you’re in the safest list, or not?

Or are they expecting passengers to accept a lower safety standard because they’re flying low cost? (answer should be ‘no’, so what’s the point of two lists?)

 

[Dmac59]

Read the full article at Airline Ratings and totally agree @MEL_Traveller
There should be one ranking only IMO as the same criteria apply in the assessment.
Whether an airline is LCC or Full Service is not relevant.

 

[Quickstatus]

It is actually very hard to measure safety as there are complex interdependencies between various internal parts of an airline (pilots, management, training, procedures culture) , and externally with regulators.

Unfortunately not much of the criteria used actually properly measure safety and there is no granular detail - only a conclusory article. It's superficial at best.
Not sure what "international safety audits" actually means. Do they mean the IATA Operational Safety Audit? Anyone know what it entails?

What's the airline's safety culture, corporate culture, near miss reporting, fatigue reporting and management, regulatory compliance, interactions between different stakeholders.

There are various different models used to measure airline safety - DEMATEL, ANP, STPA are some.. Basically it's a "dark art". I'm not sure this article actually sheds much light on the subject.

 

[JustSlash]

Interesting article....I'm guessing perhaps some LCCs might overtake full-service airlines if they’re not separated, which could easily spark a few debates.

Also a little surprised to see some LCCs in the top 10 (ahem… AirAsia and VietJet). Safe to say delays and customer satisfaction probably weren’t part of the criteria

 

[RooFlyer]

Or are they expecting passengers to accept a lower safety standard because they’re flying low cost? (answer should be ‘no’, so what’s the point of two lists?)

Maybe speaking to 2 perceived different constituencies of travellers. But agree it’s a nonsense to have two lists. Number one on LCC might be number 30 overall..

 

[Dmac59]

Doesn't make much sense.
JAL didn't make the top 25 list, yet VA ranked 9.
However, drilling down into their data shows JAL higher overall (see below)

 

[burneracc]

Not quite sure how delta made the list
There’s a great tool that details historical safety per plane and airline here: Best Airlines Ranked By Service, Safety and Lost Luggage Worldwide - Airline List

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Starlux makes the list because its approach to safety and transparency is exceptional.

Singapore Airlines remade the list in 2026 because the AR team held extensive discussions with the operations team.

Yet we still don’t have an accident report for SQ321? So how is transparency weighted in that case?

 

[Scarlett]

How is AirlineRatings funded? If by the airlines that it is rating then it is likely little better than Skytrax.

If independent then that lends some weight to their list.

Now they do apparently research accident and incident statistics and they track some vague ‘compliance’ factors, but then this from their article: “The airline also participated in our independent onboard safety audit…” regarding EY. This tends to indicate that they worked with EY (and possibly others) as one factor. Did EY provide them free flights, did others? Does it affect an airlines ranking if they choose not to engage with AirlineRatings?

Lack of transparency makes me sceptical of many of these type of proclamation lists. I’m not saying that is the case with AirlineRatings but the Skytrax effect sullies them all. Perhaps a straw poll from the ‘ask the pilot’ thread would be equally helpful…

Final thought: the inclusion of the ‘AirAsia group’ seems foolish. The safety of the various elements of the group are as varied as the cultures and safety regulators managing them.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

How is AirlineRatings funded? If by the airlines that it is rating then it is likely little better than Skytrax.

If independent then that lends some weight to their list.

Now they do apparently research accident and incident statistics and they track some vague ‘compliance’ factors, but then this from their article: “The airline also participated in our independent onboard safety audit…” regarding EY. This tends to indicate that they worked with EY (and possibly others) as one factor. Did EY provide them free flights, did others? Does it affect an airlines ranking if they choose not to engage with AirlineRatings?

Lack of transparency makes me sceptical of many of these type of proclamation lists. I’m not saying that is the case with AirlineRatings but the Skytrax effect sullies them all. Perhaps a straw poll from the ‘ask the pilot’ thread would be equally helpful…

Final thought: the inclusion of the ‘AirAsia group’ seems foolish. The safety of the various elements of the group are as varied as the cultures and safety regulators managing them.

Their methodology is here: How our airline safety ratings work and why they’re evolving

Much of that seems to be desktop.

 

[markis10]

Airline ratings.com was founded by Geoffrey Thomas………

 

[Scarlett]

Airline ratings.com was founded by Geoffrey Thomas………

Thanks. Nothing further needed…

 

[dajop]

The other thing, how does an outsider distinguish #1 for #10?

I have never had anything to do with aviation safety, but at one point had a role that covered 8 manufacturing sites and another dozen research sites across Asia Pacific. We did audits, measured all sorts of things, knew the management/leadership of each site well and some of the cultural nuances, and was privy to the outcomes of every (reported) incident from near misses to injuries requiring hospital treatment. There is no way I could rank sites from 1 to 20. Yes there were top tier, middle tier and low tier locations, but within each tier it would be a toin coss to rank them.