Emirates has been rated the world’s safest airline for the second consecutive year. The airline from Dubai scored a risk index of 95 per cent. Based on information from a report issued by the Jet Airline Crash Data Evaluation Center (Jacdec), KLM was named the second safest airline with a score of 93.31 per cent. Later came JetBlue (91.61 percent), Delta (91.55 percent) and easyJet (91.28 percent) among the 25 airlines surveyed.
Jan-Arwed Richter, founder of Jacdec, said the regional categories were created due to the changed size ratios, which shifted in favor of many airlines with strong domestic markets such as China and the US.
The magnitude of the Covid-19 crisis for airlines is enormous. Over the 2020-2022 period total losses could top $200 billion.
Willie Walsh, Iata’s director-general
Jacdec uses a very specific methodology. All airlines start with a virtual ideal value of 100%. Then every accident or incident, every dead person, every injured person, every benchmark, every audit and every risk reduced this value by a calculated penalty. The more penalty values an airline collects, the lower (or worse) its risk index will be. To reach 100% an airline would have to:
- Remain free from incidents and accidents of any kind for as long as 30 years,
- Only serve long-haul flights,
- Operate a young fleet (ideal would be between 3 and 9 years),
- Pass all the safety assessments relevant to the airline (IOSA, EU Black List) and the home country (such as USOAP, IASA) with top ratings
- Be uninvolved of any systemic operational risks such as seasonal bad weather conditions, topography or many ocean routes, and
- Operate in a country whose air safety authorities work transparently enough to report on accident reports on a regular basis.
All parameters combined are 33, which make up the entire Risk Index. This means 366 % more criteria than before.
In the Middle East, Etihad Airways topped the list, but the Abu Dhabi carrier didn’t make it to the global list due to its size. The American airlines JetBlue and Delta Air Lines were rated third and fourth, respectively, while easyJet made it to the fifth position.
In Europe, some of the airlines rated the safest airlines of the continent KLM, Finnair, Air Europa, easyJet and Norwegian. According to the Dutch Review, KLM was chosen as the safest one in Europe and its subsidiary — Transavia — came in fourth.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) earlier projected that the global airline industry losses will touch $201 billion during 2020-2022 due to the pandemic.
