Safest Airlines Announced

[petitfromage]

German Aviation Magazine "Aero International" has announced the Worlds 50 Safest Airlines.

Based on statistics collected from 1973-2004 and factored with the mileage flown by each particular airline.

1. Finnair
2. Qantas
3. Cathay Pacific
.......
7. Ryan Air
8. Easyjet
.......
50. Turkish Airlines

[Tinstaafl]

Where does KAL sit in the list?

[Volume]

How do you ´factor´ if the number of accidents is zero for several airlines ? Zero divided by any flight mileage stays zero.
Obviously this is the ´mileage between accidents´ number.

Anyway I just flew one of the six Airlines listed, THY (3 times), and am still alive. So much for statistics ;)

[Few Cloudy]

That's right - THY is one of the world's 50 safest airlines. You should be alive after 3 flights.

[rubik101]

Appropo THY: Many years ago an engineer from THY helped me change a gear box on a military flying machine. He was one of the most proffesional and helpful men I have had the pleasure to meet!

[spannersatcx]

rubik101, are you suggesting then that there is a problem with their maintenance! or conversely are you saying the maintenance is fine it must therefore be something else!!:uhoh:

[Norman Stanley Fletcher]

This is absolute rubbish. How can Finnair be 'more safe' than Cathay Pacific, Ryanair and easyJet if none of them have had any accidents? You will note that I do not include Qantas as they in fact have had a very spectacular accident in Bankok when a 747 ended up on a golf course. Yet somehow they have ended up as number 2! There was, as I recall, a drive not to write the aircraft off lest it become the first ever hull loss in the airline's history. Any airline that has not had an accident has to be further up the safety tree, and by definition in equal position with those other airlines that are accident-free.

[phoenix son]

As a slight aside from this, has anyone in the UK seen the new Qantas TV ad, which mentions their safety record? Is it just me, or does anyone else see this as a dangerous route to go down? Something to do with putting all their eggs in one basket?
Or is that just me?

[MaxBlow]

more to that on www.jacdec.de

[PAXboy]

phonix: Yes indeed. I started a thread about it in (I think) PAX about a month ago. Responses from crew (including from Qantas) were horrified by the marketing people doing this. No crew likes to have this said in adverts.

I half heard a BA advert on TV at the weekend and I thought I heard a claim about saftey but did not hear it for clear and so must listen out for another. If BA have started this too, then it is very sad. But, as I said, I am not SURE that is what was said.

[blueloo]

Yes well who decided on 1973 as a good start date?

Look what happened in 1972 and earlier...





06.15.1972 Cathay Pacific Airways Convair CV-880 Fatalities 81 /81 Pleiku, Vietnam VR-HFZ


(and earlier still.....) Cathay Pacific Airways Douglas DC-4 Fatalities 10:18
Hainan, China VR-HEU

Isnt it funny how the survey was just after this date....

And Finnair....: 1961

Finnair Douglas DC-3 Fatalities 25:25
Koivulahti, Finland OH-LCC


11.08.1963 Finnair Douglas DC-3 Fatalities 22:24
Mariehamn, Finland


We have already heard about QF (which didnt actually kill anyone), what about the rest?




Just shows that Statistics can be manipulated any way...............

[rotornut]

For the complete list go to: http://www.aerointernational.de/
Click on "UNFALLSTATISTIK" on the left hand side.

[j42h]

I wonder if the pr department of the Oneworld alliance suggested the cut off date for the nice people at the Aero International..

-J

[147break]

Looking at the link provided (and with my rusty german!!) the list states the 'safety record of the 50 Largest Airlines' not the 50 safest airlines.

Just an observation!!!

[barit1]

WOW! I have indeed lived a charmed life - I've flown fully half of the #25 thru 50 carriers and I'm still alive (or at least think so...) ;)

[Rananim]

Korean Air and China airlines shouldnt really be flying still,never mind on any saftey list.Combined,they've killed nearly as many people as 911.

[JEP]

Just remember - we have

little white lies
lies
big lies
statistics ;)

[Frangible]

The absence of KAL and China airlines can only be because they don't make the top 50. More interesting, I would have thought, though the statistical basis of this exercise is still dubious, to list the "best" through to the worst, rather than simply arranging the most used 50 airlines according to accident rate.
Two other observations. Qantas mentioning their safety record is dodgy. It may be legend, but in the early 1960s a US airline chairman was boasting of his safety record only to be informed as he left the podium of a major fatal accident. I always understood that since then it was regarded as v bad form to refer to your own safety record.
And then, on being asked about Qantas safety record a few years ago, a UAL executive responded that it would take them 25 years to fly as many miles as they do in one. And I believe there was a major fatal in 1968 or so with one of the subsidiary Qantas airlines, but that is not included in the stats.
Also, plotting the number of fatalities against passenger revenue kilometres can be misleading. THY, in the famous crash outside Paris in 74, had double the number of expected pax because a strike at Heathrow had led to the cancellation of a BEA flight and their transfer to that flight. THY therefore took a major hit statistically for reasons nothing to do with the operating circumstances. Much more sensible to plot numbers of fatal crashes against cycles. More faithful to the reality, and it would result in a completely different ranking. There are 100 more caveats, though, and any statistician will tell you that this sort of ranking is highly unscientific.

[rej]

There used to be a website, which I think was called "am I going down". Yes I know it sound a bit dodgy but, if you entered all the information such as airline, route, travel dates etc it would work out the propbability of the unthinkable happening based on previous airline records.

No sure if it still exists but it was 'good fun' comparing data.

[colts19]

The top four or so, no doubt, an excellent safety record. I do feel you must take into account the US carriers. The number of operations these ailines perform in 30 minutes, are more than most of the top three in one day.
In any event I just hope no airline PR or ops departments pay any attention to this. A slipperey slope.

[Animalclub]

Frangible

QANTAS did not have any subsidiary airlines in 1968. In those days it was a government airline. You could be refering to domestic airlines Trans Australia Airlines or Ansett airlines - both of which had fatal accidents in the 60's.

blueloo and others

QF have had fatal accidents allbeit in their early days and some in Papua New Guinea where flying in those days was very trying, to say the least. However, since QF became an all jet fleet they have never had a fatality... and they have one of the best safety records.

[petitfromage]

The ONE WORLD connection/insinuation (although impossible to prove) is rather interesting...Nice observation.

Cathay Pacific have lost 5 aircraft since 1948, the last one in 1972.

1. PB4Y Catalina: 1948. Enroute Macau, the pilots were shot by hijackers. (25 Fatalities)

2. DC-3. 1949. Crashed in a hill during a Missed Approach from Kai Tak. (23 Fatalities)

3. DC-3. 1954. Shot down by a Chinese flighter plane. (10 Fatalities)

4. Convair 880. 1967. Departed the runway on take off from Kai Tak after a nose wheel failure. (1 Fatality)

5. Convair 880. 1972. Bomb exploded in midair over Vietnam. Although never proven in court, the bomb was planted under the seats of a Thai passenger, whose husband, a police officer, had taken out an extensive life insurance policy on her the week before! (81 Killed)

[jettesen]

how can ryanair be safer tham easyjet???? Fr have had 3 evacuations ( using slides) easy have had 0. ryanair have had several burst tyres , easyjet have had 0. FR have had 2 engine fires, easyjet have only had 1. on what safety issues are the airlines ranked on??


p.s this isn't a FR bashing post either!

[j42h]

Come on, the list is total rubbish. They have used the formation year of the company as the tie breaker, and ended up on the situation where one company is "safer" than another based on longviety rather than the amount of dead people..

One way these statistics are misused is the way Finnair does it. They boast about being in business since 1924 (when they were called Aero), but not ever having a fatal accident (since the name of the company was changed to Finnair after those accidents in the sixties). So when they want to emphasize the age of the company, they say they have been in business since 1924, when they want to emphasize safety they have been in business since the sixties. Actually when they want to emphasize the safety aspect, they just say that they have never had a fatal accident, and not mention anything about this name changing business..

-J

[ZQA297/30]

Well, there's lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Lets face it, by careful selection of the parameters, you can make them say almost anything.
The question that begs is, what is the spin on these numbers?
Who benefits, who loses?
Hmmmm.

[cavortingcheetah]

:oh:

But what happened to the Helderberg ?:sad:

[Konkordski]

has anyone in the UK seen the new Qantas TV ad, which mentions their safety record?


Yes, I've seen it - but it's not the first airline which has advertised recently using its safety record as a hook. I believe Lufthansa has done the same, albeit in print.

[Old Smokey]

The reality is that even if you travel on the world's WORST airline, you still have a much better chance of arriving safely than you would on the drive To and From the airport.

I've been in the airline industry for 38 years, and one of the industry ethics was that you NEVER used a good safety record as an advertising pitch. Not only was it tempting fate, but an insult to competitors who may have been only a minor fraction of a percentage point behind you on a 'technicality'. That, of course, was was in an era when ethics existed within airline management.

Happy flying,

Old Smokey (I became old by flying with safe airlines)