'safest' airlines rate a mention

[BAM1748]

Agency names world's 10 safest airlines - Yahoo!7

 

[gumpy]

The world's safest airlines article... I'm a bit surprised.

World's top 10 safest airlines named | Air Transport Rating Agency

No QF =(

 

[oz_mark]

Re: The world's safest airlines article... I'm a bit surprised.

Wonder what the criteria for this ranking was...

The 15 selected criteria are:

• Net financial result
• Total number of passengers
• Total number of employees
• Total number of cabin crew employees
• Total number of aircrafts
• Average fleet age in service
• Percentage of aircrafts on order
• Fleet homogeneity
• Number of aircrafts no longer in production
• Number of aircrafts considered at risk
• Total aircrafts-km flown
• In house maintenance capability
• Number of accidents during the last 10 years
• Dedicated flight academy pilot-training facilities
• Dedicated full flight simulators

See: ATRA HOLISTIC SAFETY RATING - Official website of the Air Transport Rating Agency - Geneva

 

[nlagalle]

Re: The world's safest airlines article... I'm a bit surprised.

World's top 10 safest airlines named | Air Transport Rating Agency

No QF =(

Considering Air France have lost an aircraft in the last 5 years, I find it strange that it is at the top of the list.....

 

[anat0l]

Re: The world's safest airlines article... I'm a bit surprised.

Considering Air France have lost an aircraft in the last 5 years, I find it strange that it is at the top of the list.....

It is not directly at the top of the list (i.e. not #1) necessarily. The report and the SMH have reported the airlines in alphabetical order; the actual ranking of these top 10 airlines has not been disclosed.

The safety report seems to be based more on the actual systems in place for safety more than any safety incidents. Mind you, evaluating the safety of an airline based on the latter has its share of pitfalls, too.

 

[gumpy]

Re: The world's safest airlines article... I'm a bit surprised.

The 15 selected criteria are:

• Net financial result
• Total number of passengers
• Total number of employees
• Total number of cabin crew employees
• Total number of aircrafts
• Average fleet age in service
• Percentage of aircrafts on order
• Fleet homogeneity
• Number of aircrafts no longer in production
• Number of aircrafts considered at risk
• Total aircrafts-km flown
• In house maintenance capability
• Number of accidents during the last 10 years
• Dedicated flight academy pilot-training facilities
• Dedicated full flight simulators

See: ATRA HOLISTIC SAFETY RATING - Official website of the Air Transport Rating Agency - Geneva

Wow you responded quickly before I updated my OP.

I saw it highlighted in blue after I had a 2nd read.

 

[russ]

Re: The world's safest airlines article... I'm a bit surprised.

Surely there should be a sixteenth criterion: Qantas Pilots

 

[harvyk]

Re: The world's safest airlines article... I'm a bit surprised.

The 15 selected criteria are:

• Net financial result
• Total number of passengers
• Total number of employees
• Total number of cabin crew employees
• Total number of aircrafts
• Average fleet age in service
• Percentage of aircrafts on order
• Fleet homogeneity
• Number of aircrafts no longer in production
• Number of aircrafts considered at risk
• Total aircrafts-km flown
• In house maintenance capability
• Number of accidents during the last 10 years
• Dedicated flight academy pilot-training facilities
• Dedicated full flight simulators

See: ATRA HOLISTIC SAFETY RATING - Official website of the Air Transport Rating Agency - Geneva

These 15 criteria seem a little strange, for example I don't see how total number of pax can give an airline a safe or unsafe rating... A ratio of cabin crew to pax would be a more valid criteria. Also percentage of aircrafts on order doesn't really say a lot in terms of safety, same again with aircraft no longer in production.

Some far more useful stats to use in determining if an airline is safe or not would be

- Ratio of incidents vs total fleet
- Ratio of accidents vs total fleet
- Systems in place to detect and repair faults (Not the actual numbers of faults as certain airlines are much more conservative than others)
- Pilot training requirements
- Pilot reporting requirements
- Frequency of systems and procedure audits
- Ratio of Cabin Crew to pax (Remembering that cabin crew are there for safety reasons first and foremost)

 

[wingspan]

Re: The world's safest airlines article... I'm a bit surprised.

These 15 criteria seem a little strange, for example I don't see how total number of pax can give an airline a safe or unsafe rating... A ratio of cabin crew to pax would be a more valid criteria. Also percentage of aircrafts on order doesn't really say a lot in terms of safety, same again with aircraft no longer in production.

Totally agree. The net financial result would really skew these findings as well, considering that there are undoubtedly many airlines whose net financial result is low, but who strictly prioritise safety. In fact, wouldn't it be possible that the reason that a given airline's net financial result is low is because they have invested heavily in safety precautions.

Of course I'm assuming that a high net financial result gave an airline a better rating. But there is nothing in the articles to suggest how the financial results were rated, interpreted or used. The criteria are a bit vague.

 

[BAM1748]

I guess the criteria they have selected is something they can access and measure. In the end you have to pick something while they may not have been my first choices many of them do make sense as a way of comparing smaller with larger.

 

[MelUser]

I dare say that families of those on AF447 may not agree with this list.

 

[BAM1748]

I dare say that families of those on AF447 may not agree with this list.

I agree, I wouldn't have picked them. But because they never seem to investigate anything properly if it looks like a Frenchman is at fault! :shock:

 

[markis10]

Really poor criteria IMHO, number of accidents versus hours flown/fatalities-injuries for instance.

 

[russ]

markis10, As usual, I agree with you. There is something very suss about about the rating company and the criteria.

Company: I would have expected the company website to list the credentials of the key employees, but it doesn't even identify them. The domain name is registered to a guy who specialises in data mining and appears to have little aviation knowledge.

Criteria: The explanation of their methodology and criteria is muddled at best. They don't even define what they mean by "general safety" (number of accidents? number of deaths? injuries?) and they don't explain the predictive power of their model. The criteria seem to be weighted towards "hardware" rather than software. For example I would have thought that the existence of a Safety Management System would be of more predictive power than "percentage of aircrafts [sic] on order."