Air New Zealand has dethroned Qantas as the world’s safest airline in the 2022 rankings by AirlineRatings.com, an organization that tracks airlines for safety, product, and COVID-19 policies.
The company monitors 385 airlines around the world and selected Air New Zealand at the top of this year’s annual list.
“Air New Zealand is very humbled to receive this recognition, particularly given the high safety standards the airline industry holds itself to,” company CEO Greg Foran said. “We’re in good company, and a big congratulations to all airlines on the list.”
Editors noted that Air New Zealand flies in some of the most challenging weather conditions and has an extremely young fleet at just 6.8 years.
They also praised a number of technological advancements the airline has made including real-time monitoring of its engines and the use of a Future Air Navigation System.
Tackling COVID-19
“Air New Zealand is a stand-out airline with a firm focus on safety and its customers, and over the past 18 months, COVID-19 has brought another new dimension to the challenges the industry faces,” editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas said. “Air New Zealand has excelled across the broad safety spectrum, never losing sight of the smallest detail while caring for its flight crews who have worked under significant stress.”
Foran said his company has taken the pandemic seriously from the outset, and that has been key to their approach.
“Throughout the pandemic, the whole Air New Zealand team has been focused on protecting the health and safety of our people, customers, and the wider New Zealand community,” Foran said. “We were the first airline in the world to ask our customers flying on our domestic services to either be vaccinated or tested before boarding and come 1 February, will require all customers on our international services to be fully vaccinated too.”
Its most recent move in this regard came just this week when the airline eliminated food and…