Qantas, the Australian airline that's usually at the top of the safety list was once again ranked as the safest way to fly by AirlineRatings.com for the past year.
Last year it was also at the top, but the site didn't rank its top 20, after putting Qantas first from 2014 through 2017. This year, it put the number back for Qantas, but then listed the rest of the 20 in alphabetical order, in part because the differences are not that great.
This year's safest, picked from among 405 airlines and rated based on government audits, industry governing bodies and associations and a list of criteria that include crash and incident records, fleet age and more, are, after Qantas, 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 Airways, Scandinavian Airline System, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, and United Airlines and Virgin group of airlines (Atlantic and Australia).
Changes for the year include United's return to the list after several years off, and the disappearance, at least for now, of Japan Airlines and Etihad. JAL lost its spot because of an incident involving a pilot found to be intoxicated at Heathrow; Etihad over concerns that its recent worsening financial picture might erode maintenance and safety.
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