Discover the Top-Ranked Airlines for Safety in 2025: See How U.S. Carriers Measure Up!

For the year 2025, Air New Zealand has been recognized as the safest full-service airline globally for the second consecutive year.

The national airline of New Zealand has repeatedly been ranked either at the summit or close to it for many years, narrowly surpassing Qantas in second place for the second successive year, as stated by AirlineRatings.com, which curates these rankings annually. Qantas, from Australia, achieved a very close second position.

“It was once again a very tight competition between Air New Zealand and Qantas for the top spot, with merely 1.50 points differentiating the two carriers,” expressed Sharon Petersen, the CEO of AirlineRatings.com, in a statement. “While both airlines maintain exemplary safety protocols and pilot training, Air New Zealand continues to operate a more modern fleet compared to Qantas, which makes the difference.”

The third place was shared by Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways, and Emirates.

“From fleet age to pilot proficiency, safety protocols, fleet magnitude, and occurrence rates, their evaluations were identical,” Petersen noted, adding “we simply could not distinguish among these airlines.”

Following that, Virgin Australia and Etihad Airways made up the remaining top five positions.

Alaska Airlines was the sole U.S. airline to enter the top 10, securing the 9th position on the list, while Hawaiian Airlines was ranked 12th, American Airlines 13th, Delta Airlines 21st, and United Airlines 23rd.

To develop these rankings, the organization reviewed various safety-related elements, including significant incidents over the past two years, the age and scale of an airline’s fleet, incident rates, fatalities, a carrier’s profitability, audits, and the expertise and training of the pilots employed by an airline.

Here is the complete list of the safest full-service airlines worldwide for 2025, according to AirlineRatings.com:

1. Air New Zealand
2. Qantas
3. Cathay Pacific; Qatar Airways; Emirates
4. Virgin Australia
5. Etihad Airways
6. ANA
7. EVA Air
8. Korean Air
9. Alaska Airlines
10. Turkish Airlines (THY)
11. TAP Portugal
12. Hawaiian Airlines
13. American Airlines
14. SAS
15. British Airways
16. Iberia
17. Finnair
18. Lufthansa/Swiss
19. JAL
20. Air Canada
21. Delta Airlines
22. Vietnam Airlines
23. United Airlines