Emirates has once again been named the world's safest airline by the Hamburg-based Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC).
The world's largest operator of double-decker Airbus A380s - the largest passenger jet in history - has successfully defended its top ranking in a JACDEC survey carried out for aviation magazine Aero International.
With a risk index of 95.05 per cent, Emirates beat out its nearest rivals KLM (93.31 per cent), JetBlue (91.61), Delta (91.55) and easyJet (91.28) among the 25 airlines surveyed.
For the first time, JACDEC also published regional rankings, which compare the world's largest airlines within one of four regions.
On a regional level, Emirates slipped behind another Gulf airline, Etihad Airways, which due to its size did not make it onto the global list, however.
KLM, Finnair, Air Europa
In Europe, KLM (93.31) took first place, ahead of Finnair (93.16), Air Europa (93.12), Transavia (92.83), easyJet (91.28) and Norwegian (90.95).
The creation of regional categories was "primarily due to the changed size ratios, which shifted in favour of many airlines with strong domestic markets such as China or the US," explained JACDEC founder Jan-Arwed Richter.
Due to pandemic-related slumps in the aviation industry throughout 2021, as well as only a timid resurgence of passenger numbers, past airline accidents had a greater impact on results this time.
Pandemic effects
Some well-known airlines such as Austrian, Eurowings and Condor didn't even make it into the European Top 25 due to insufficient passenger-kilometre performance in 2021.
Even before the emergence of the Omicron variant and the renewed restrictions that followed in its wake, aviation industry losses due to the pandemic have already totalled some 200 billion dollars, according to Willie Walsh, director general of the airline association IATA.
Walsh predicted a total loss of 52 billion dollars for 2021 and of 12 billion dollars in 2022, before the aviation industry finally returns to making profits in 2023.
