If one of your new year resolutions is to travel more, listen up. AirlineRatings.com has just released their list of the world’s safest airlines and because they want to help save you a dollar while you travel, they’ve also rounded up the safest budget airlines. Because It goes without saying that we all love to travel—as cheaply and, most importantly, as safely as possible.
If you’re wondering why you should listen to AirlineRatings.com, it’s because they do not make their lists lightly. By monitoring 405 airlines throughout the year, they take a seriously comprehensive list of factors into account. Among others, these include audits from aviation’s governing and industry bodies; government audits; airline’s crash and serious incident record; profitability, industry-leading safety initiatives, and fleet age. Basically, they leave no stone unturned, so you can be sure you’re getting all the answers you need before booking your trip without actually having to do any of the work.
Now, the reason you’re all here—the winner. Taking out the top prize once again this year is the Australian airline Qantas. Because among other things, in the company’s 98-year history they have never had a major, fatal airliner accident. That is, if you’re willing to ignore a couple of accidents prior to 1952, during World War II like we absolutely are.
In alphabetical order, these are the top 20 safest airlines in the world:
- Air New Zealand
- Alaska Airlines
- All Nippon Airways
- American Airlines
- Austrian Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific Airways
- Emirates
- EVA Air
- Finnair
- Hawaiian Airlines
- KLM
- Lufthansa
- Qantas
- Qatar
- Scandinavian Airline System
- Singapore Airlines
- Swiss
- United Airlines
- The Virgin group of airlines (Atlantic and Australia)

Image source:Holger Link
Now for the money savers
These are top 10 budget (pardon, ‘low cost’) airlines in the world right now, in alphabetical order again because we refuse to play favourites:
- Flybe
- Frontier
- HK Express
- Jetblue
- Jetstar Australia / Asia
- Thomas Cook
- Volaris
- Vueling
- Westjet
- Wizz
Now you just need to figure out where you want to travel to—in case you need some inspiration, these are the destinations on the rise for 2019.