The ten safest airlines in the world

The Economist

THE Air Transport Rating Agency (ATRA) has named what it considers to be the ten safest airlines in the world. These are mainly American and European carriers, which makes the ranking quite different from those focusing on customer service and usually dominated by Asian and Middle Eastern airlines. Indeed, the Sydney Morning Heraldpoints out that no airline is in both the ATRA top ten and the top ten in the Skytrax awards, which recognise “front-line product and service standards”.

ATRA came into being earlier this year, and this is the first rating in what it intends to be an annual series. It compiled its list not only from historic accident rates, but by assessing airlines on 15 criteria such as net financial result, average fleet age, in-house maintenance capability and dedicated full-flight simulators. It trumpets a similarity between its technique and that used by the World Health Organisation. Gulliver is no statistician; when he read that "[e]ach of the 15 criteria represents one dimension, and all dimensions are projected into one or more dimensions to construct the composite indicator", he swallowed hard. If any reader can offer a useful assessment of the method, please do so below.

It is interesting to consider how to respond to the rating. Would anyone choose, say, British Airways over Singapore Airlines because of the former's place in ATRA's list? After all, Singapore is considered a safe carrier. Flyers might, though, choose Singapore ahead of BA for its service. I suspect passengers are more used to the notion that the world's leading airlines offer varying degrees of comfort, than that they offer varying degrees of safety. ATRA's work might change that, but it's the accidents that stick in people's minds.

ATRA's ten safest airlines (in alphabetical order):

Air France-KLM,

AMR Corporation (American Airlines, American Eagles),

British Airways,

Continental Airlines,

Delta Air Lines,

Japan Airlines,

Lufthansa,

Southwest Airlines,

United Airlines,

US Airways

The Economist