To ring in the new year, AirlineRatings.com has released its third annual list of the world's safest airlines.
Qantas Airways dominated the list, along with many other Pacific-based airlines.
The website ranked the safety of 407 airlines around the world based on certifications and endorsements, government audits, fatality records, operational history and incident records.
For the third year in a row, Australia's flag carrier Qantas took top honors. AirlineRatings.com's editors praised Qantas's fatality-free record as "extraordinary." (Qantas also currently holds the record for the world's longest flight -- from Sydney, Australia to Dallas, Texas in more than 15 hours.)
The top 20 safest airlines, in alphabetical order, are
Air New ZealandAlaska AirlinesAll Nippon AirlinesAmerican AirlinesCathay Pacific AirwaysEmiratesEtihad AirwaysEVA AirFinnairHawaiian AirlinesJapan AirlinesKLMLufthansaScandinavian Airline SystemSingapore AirlinesSwissUnited AirlinesVirgin AtlanticVirgin Australia
AirlineRatings.com also announced a separate safety ranking for budget airlines. The top 10 were:
Aer LingusFlybeHK ExpressJetblueJetstar AustraliaThomas CookTUI FlyVirgin AmericaVolarisWestjet
However, for every list there is an equal and opposite list. At the bottom were 10 airlines that only received one star out of a possible seven star rating. Based in Indonesia, Nepal and Surinam, the least safe airlines, in alphabetical order, are:
Batik AirBluewing AirlinesCitilinkKal-Star aviationLion AirSriwijaya AirTransNusaTrigana Air ServiceWings AirXpress Air
Indonesian airlines have been lambasted in recent years for their accident-laden safety records. Many of the country's airlines have been banned from flying within the European Union.
Even though 2015 saw some high profile aviation accidents, namely the GermanWings and MetroJet tragedies -- the year was the safest on record. The total of 16 accidents and 560 fatalities were well below the 10-year average of 31 accidents and 714 fatalities.