The safest US-based airlines are AMR Corporation, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways, while the safest from Asia is Japan Airlines, it said on Monday, without giving a ranking within the top ten.
To obtain this classification, the first of its kind, ATRA examined publicly available information on 15 criteria, such as the average age of the aircraft used or the homogeneity of the fleet, it said.
The agency explained that to understand airline safety, one needed not only to look at accident figures, but also “technical, human, organisational and external” elements.
“Even though the European Union publishes a ‘blacklist’ of dangerous airlines, there exists a real difference in safety between the other airline companies,” ATRA added.