Flying give you 'the fear?' Here are the world's safest airlines
Flying is an inevitably stressful affair.
The trip to the airport can be littered with traffic, the lines to check-in annoyingly long, and don't even get us started on anxiety-inducing turbulence.
So we'll take anything that allows us to rest easy, and that comes in the form of flying on airlines renowned for safety.
For the fourth year running, Australian carrier Qantas has been named the safest airline in the world. That's according to travel website AirlineRatings.com, who surveyed 425 airlines for 2017.
Qantas, which has been operating for 96 years, has "a fatality free record in the jet era -- an extraordinary record," writes the website's editors.
"The world's oldest continuously operating airline has amassed an amazing record of firsts in operations and safety and is now accepted by the British Advertising Standards Association as the industry’s most experienced carrier."
According to the website, Qantas leads the way in development of the Future Air Navigation System; the Flight Data Recorder to monitor plane and later crew performance; automatic landings using Global Navigation Satellite Systems as well as precision approaches around mountains in cloud using Required Navigation Performance (RNP). Impressive.
As for the top 20 airlines, in alphabetical order, the list includes: Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Delta Air Lines, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airline System, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia.
The website also noted the safest low-cost airlines, which include in alphabetical order: Aer Lingus, Flybe, HK Express, Jetblue, Jetstar Australia, Jetstar Asia, Thomas Cook, Virgin America, Vueling and Westjet.
But if you don't happen to be flying with any of these airlines, for God's sake, don't panic.
The number of crashes have shown a "steady and persistent decline over the past two decades," despite a number of highly-publicised incidents in 2016.
Just hope Godzilla doesn't come for you, we guess.
