The UAE’s Air Arabia has been ranked in the top ten safest low-cost airlines for 2021, in the latest list from AirlineRatings.com.
The low-cost airline, which operates in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, was part of the top ten – which is not ranked but listed alphabetically.
Other airlines in the top ten include Allegiant (America), easyJet (UK), Frontier (US), Jetstar Group (Australia), JetBlue (US), Ryanair (Ireland), VietJet (Vietnam), WestJet (Canada) and Wizz (Hunga-ry).
Wizz Air is launching in Abu Dhabi next week, with the first flight from the UAE capital leaving for Athens on Friday January 15. Flights will take place twice a week with fares starting from Dhs129 for a one way journey.
AirlineRatings said: “These LCCs have all passed the stringent International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) and have excellent safety records. IOSA is an internationally recog-nised and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline. It looks at more than 1000 audit parameters and airlines are re-evaluated eve-ry two years.”
AirlineRatings.com also revealed the world’s safest airlines for 2021 this week. Both Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways made the top ten – in fifth and seventh place respectively.
Australia’s Qantas topped the rankings, while other airlines making it into the top ten include Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
Launched in 2013, AirlineRatings rates the safety, in-flight product and COVID-19 compliance of 385 airlines.
AirlinesRatings analyses “crashes, serious incidents, audits from aviation’s governing bodies and lead associations; government audits, and fleet age”.
Both Emirates and Etihad also ranked in the top 20 airlines for COVID-19 compliance, with AirlineR-atings saying all 20 had “gone above and beyond in the protection of passengers, or in adding flexi-bility to travel”. The top 20 were noted as “trendsetters for making travel as safe as possible”.
For more travel news in Abu Dhabi click here. For Dubai click here. For Sharjah click here.
