What are the world's least safe airlines?
Afraid to fly? You might want to think more than twice about soaring into the wild blue yonder aboard Trigana Air Service.
The Indonesian regional carrier is one of the least safe airlines in the world, according to Airlineratings.com. The site gives Trigana zero stars out of a possible seven. Of Airlinerating.com's 10 lowest-scoring airlines when it comes to safety, all are in Nepal, Indonesia or Surinam:
- Batik Air -- 1 star
- Bluewing Airlines -- 2 stars
- Citilink -- 1 star
- KalStar Aviation -- 1 star
- Lion Air -- 1 star
- Sriwijaya Air -- 1 star
- TransNusa -- 1 star
- Wings Air -- 1 star
- Xpress Air -- 1 star
Airlineratings.com, which says its method is approved by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, bases its criteria on factors including an airline's crash and fatality records, incident reports and operational history, along with aviation authority audits.
For example, if an airline isn't certified by either the International Air Transport Association or have what's known in the trade as "operational safety audit" certification, the site gives it no stars.
For the third year in a row, the world's safest carrier is Qantas, according to Airlineratings.com. The Australian flagship famously has never had a fatal jet crash.
Other top-rated airlines (in alphabetical order): Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines (ALK), All Nippon Airways, American Airlines (AAL), Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airline System, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, United Airlines (UAL), Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia (Airlineratings.com doesn't numerically rank airlines, saying that highly rated carriers are too close in operational safety.)
Among discount airlines, Airlineratings.com gives high marks to Aer Lingus, Flybe, Jetblue (JBLU), Virgin America (VA) and Westjet.
Of the 407 airlines tracked by Airlineratings.com, 148 have a seven-star safety ranking, while nearly 50 have three stars or less.