Actually I haven't said that VA and Rex should not be open as well, I said they appear on the ATSB site for such events. The rumor and heresay I'm presenting is first hand from my own eyes and ears, as I have pointed out already. I have many mates in the industry and hear whenever there is an air return, failure or such as well as being present for many due to my work.
The plain fact is QF group incidents and such, especially engine failures are not open to the public, the ATSB does not publish any account of these let alone investigate them, yet the airline claims it is the safest.
What I'm calling for is that all events be listed on the ATSB website, QF, VA, Rex whatever. Then we can really see what trends are happening. This used to be the case, but now appears that everything is hidden within each companies safety system, which can be effectively hidden until one has a spectacular ending.
Right now I KNOW of 10 engine failure events at QF group that happened in the last 12 months and rumors of more, none of which have any public listing. The 717 events all seam to be consistent issues of hot section failures, so a trend. I know QLink Dash 8s had a torrid run most of last year due to schedule overload and lack of parts, which ended up in a few incidents. I'm not going to divulge the individual sources, but we'll just say I know people everywhere, and may even work for some of said companies.
As for “claiming the mantle of safest operator”, just because some stupid website puts them on top of an arbitrary list does not make it a claim by Qantas.
I used to work for an industry magazine, ratings are usually not independent rather a result of corporate interactions. Most of the awards you see issued to companies in insurance etc etc are not genuine, but paid for in some way, even the magazine might be linked to the company it awards. Its how these groups run websites and magazines and make a profit. By the way the chief editor of Airlineratings.com is none other than GT.