Air New Zealand has dethroned Qantas as the world’s safest airline in the 2022 rankings by AirlineRatings.com, an organization that tracks airlines for safety, product, and COVID-19 policies.
The company monitors 385 airlines around the world and selected Air New Zealand at the top of this year’s annual list.
“Air New Zealand is very humbled to receive this recognition, particularly given the high safety standards the airline industry holds itself to,” company CEO Greg Foran said. “We’re in good company, and a big congratulations to all airlines on the list.”
Editors noted that Air New Zealand flies in some of the most challenging weather conditions and has an extremely young fleet at just 6.8 years.
They also praised a number of technological advancements the airline has made including real-time monitoring of its engines and the use of a Future Air Navigation System.
Tackling COVID-19
“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,” editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas said. “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.”
Foran said his company has taken the pandemic seriously from the outset, and that has been key to their approach.
“Throughout the pandemic, the whole Air New Zealand team has been focused on protecting the health and safety of our people, customers, and the wider New Zealand community,” Foran said. “We were the first airline in the world to ask our customers flying on our domestic services to either be vaccinated or tested before boarding and come 1 February, will require all customers on our international services to be fully vaccinated too.”
Its most recent move in this regard came just this week when the airline eliminated food and drinks from its domestic flights over concerns about the omicron variant, which has not found its way to New Zealand.
The Top 20
Qantas had been at the top of the list in the 2021 rankings and had been number one 6 of the previous 7 years. This year, it fell to seventh.
Here are the top 20 for 2022, according to AirlineRankings.com:
- Air New Zealand
- Etihad Airways
- Qatar Airways
- Singapore Airlines
- TAP Air Portugal
- SAS
- Qantas
- Alaska Airlines
- EVA Air
- Virgin Australia/Atlantic
- Cathay Pacific Airways
- Hawaiian Airlines
- American Airlines
- Lufthansa/Swiss Group
- Finnair
- Air France/KLM Group
- British Airways
- Delta Air Lines
- United Airlines
- Air Emirates
Thomas called all 20 airlines standouts and noted there was very little difference between them.
The Best Low-Cost Airlines
The company also released a list of its safest low-cost airlines. They were not ranked, only listed alphabetically:
- Allegiant
- easyJet
- Frontier
- Jetstar Group
- Jetblue
- Ryanair
- Vietjet
- Volaris
- Westjet
- Wizz