Air France-KLM, British Airways and Lufthansa have been named the safest airlines in European a study ranking the ‘ten safest airlines’ by the Air Transport Rating Agency (ATRA) released today. The safest US airlines are American Airlines, Continental, Delta, Southwest, United and US Airways, while the safest from Asia is Japan Airlines, it said, without giving a ranking within its top ten.
To obtain this classification, ATRA examined publicly available information on 15 criteria, such as the average age of the aircraft used or the homogeneity of the fleet. The agency said that to rank airline's for safety, you need to look at accident figures, but also ‘technical, human, organisational and external’ elements.
According to its website, Geneva-based ATRA is independent of all 'airlines, manufacturers, regulatory authorities, trade unions and not-for-profit organisations' in performing its aviation risk assessment.
World's 10 safest airlines (in alphabetical order):Air France-KLMAMR Corporation (American Airlines, American Eagles)British AirwaysContinental AirlinesDelta AirlinesJapan AirlinesLufthansaSouthwest AirlinesUnited AirlinesUS Airways