As much as we complain about the small seats or the often-naff onboard meals, the only thing that’s really, truly important on a plane is not falling out of the sky. If you’re shooting a few hundred people 35,000 feet into the air, you need to make sure you’re doing it right, and if you’re the one being shot up, you need to be able to trust the people doing it.
Airlineratings.com, which wins extra points for being clearly and concisely named, spends its time well, rating airlines based on various criteria including safety. It’s worth noting that the aviation industry is very regulated, so no operational planes or companies are actually unsafe – they wouldn’t be allowed to fly. With that said, some are doing better than others.
To discover the most dependable of all, the team at Airlineratings compared every major airline in nine different criteria, ranging from fleet size and age to pilot training and skill levels. The site then measured each provider in context of the size and, finally, ended up with its latest ranking for 2025.
So who can you trust the most? In the UK, your best bet is British Airways (BA) which came 15th in the world, with an overall safety rating of seven out of seven. Not too shabby at all.
According to Airlineratings.com, BA makes sure to ‘continually [update] its fleet’, making sure to ‘focus on increasing fuel efficiency and reducing environmental impact’, as well as always being at the cutting edge of innovation in the industry. The site also says that BA’s ‘integration of advanced technology’ is a particular strength for the company, which could be part of the reason that it scores so well in this particular ranking.
BA may be excelling in this area, but it is still being beaten by a few very reliable firms. Air New Zealand took the top spot, with its newer fleet just pushing it above Qantas in second place, despite the fact that both have high standards for teaching their pilots. If you want to find out more about the international winners, have a look here.
A couple of British groups also popped up in the ‘low-cost airlines’ chart, including easyJet in fourth, Jet2 in 14th, as well as Ireland’s Ryanair, which made it to the dizzying heights of third place. We’re pretty rigorous fliers, it turns out.
So next time you’re on a BA (or EasyJet or Jet2 flight) and going through some turbulence, you can sit back and know that you really are in very good hands – even if you might need to keep a sick-bag within reach.
Eyes on the skies
There’s loads more where that came from. It turns out that none of the world’s most on-time airports or airlines are in the UK. On the bright side, BA just announced a loyalty programme, although some of the carrier’s short haul flights have seemingly been cancelled. See here for the full list of exciting new flights launching from UK airports this winter.
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