Air New Zealand world's safest airline for 2022. Top 20 list

Qantas was at the top position in the safest airlines in the world last year but slipped to the third position due to an incident at Perth Airport in 2018.

Air New Zealand has topped an annual list of the safest airlines in the world for 2022 as coronavirus disease (Covid-19) continue to dominate the conversation around air safety. AirlineRatings.com, an airline safety and product review website, announced its top 20 safest airlines in the world and top ten safest low-cost airlines for 2022 from the 385 airlines it monitors.

An Air New Zealand plane is seen taxiing from the international terminal at Sydney Airport. (Reuters)

“Air New Zealand is a stand-out airline with a firm focus on safety and its customers and over the past 18 months, Covid-19 has brought another new dimension to the challenges the industry faces,” Airlineratings.com editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas said, as quoted by the Australia-based website.

“Air New Zealand has excelled across the broad safety spectrum never losing sight of the smallest detail while caring for its flight crews who have worked under significant stress,” Thomas added.

Qantas was at the top position in the safest airlines in the world last year but slipped to seventh due to an incident at Perth Airport in 2018. The portal said that the report on the serious incident was not issued till late 2020, due to which it was left out from the 2021 safety rankings.

Here’s the list of the top 20 safest airlines in the world:

1. Air New Zealand
2. Etihad Airways
3. Qatar Airways
4. Singapore Airlines
5. TAP Air Portugal
6. SAS
7. Qantas
8. Alaska Airlines
9. EVA Air
10. Virgin Australia/Atlantic
11. Cathay Pacific Airways
12. Hawaiian Airlines
13. American Airlines
14. Lufthansa/Swiss Group
15. Finnair
16. Air France/KLM Group
17. British Airways
18. Delta Air Lines
19. United Airlines
20. Emirates

The top 10 safest low-cost airlines in the world, in alphabetical order, are Allegiant, easyjet, Frontier, Jetstar Group, Jetblue, Ryanair, Vietjet, Volaris, Westjet, and Wizz. Factors like incident records over the past two years, crash records over the past five years, results of audits conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation have been considered to decide the top 10 safest low-cost airlines.