2 November 2000Indonesia’s Merpati Nusantara and Myanmar’s national carrier Myanmar Airways have been rated among the worst of 477 airlines in a league table assessing flying risk.
The table, produced for an international development bank and released at an airline safety conference in Brussels recently, rated Air Canada as the world’s safest airline.
A passenger on Air Canada has only a one in 1.3 million chance of being involved in any kind of accident.
The figure is based on Air Canada’s safety record and includes factors such as management structure, fleet composition and safety regulation in its home country.
Ansett Australia and Qantas were rated as the world’s second and third safest airlines respectively.
All Nippon Airways (12), Cathay Pacific (13), Japan Airlines (18), Singapore Airlines (19) and Air New Zealand (20) were among the best rated airlines for safety in the study provided to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The statistics are expected to be used by companies who fear the possibility of being sued for booking an employee on an unsafe flight that subsequently crashes.
Merpati Indonesia came 393rd in the survey and Myanmar Airways was in 397th place. The worst performer was Air Georgia which, according to the report, operates just four flights a week and averages three accidents for every 1000 flights.
Carriers from the former Soviet bloc and Africa featured prominently in the 20 worst airlines for safety.
Five European airlines were among the 10 best - Lufthansa Airlines (4), Swissair (5), KLM (8), British Airways (9) and SAS (10). American Airways (6) and United Airlines (7) also performed strongly.
The report - revealed in London’s Sunday Times - had some good news for air travellers. Overall accident rates are falling.
Last year, 674 people were killed in passenger air crashes, significantly lower than the 1990-98 average of 1,326.