Travel + Leisure, a monthly publication from American Express Publishing Corp, decided to find out which airlines are the safest of all by taking a Bowl Championship Series–like methodology (see full explanation below) that combines the two major global safety rankings with other critical factors to determine the top airline rankings.

Methodology

Travel + Leisure began by reviewing the latest global safety rankings from the Air Transport Rating Agency (ATRA) and the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC). Both release annual rankings, but their methodologies vary and their results are often vastly different. Based in Switzerland, ATRA's approach is based on aviation risk assessment and advanced data analyses. JACDEC, based in Germany, uses a number of factors to determine its annual calculations including hull loss accidents and serious incidents in the last 30 years of operations in relation to the revenue passenger kilometer (RPK) during the same time span.

Travel + Leisure examined ATRA's top 20 airlines and JACDEC's top 60 airlines from 2012 and assigned point values for each placing. We then awarded extra points to any airlines with a clean slate of no fatal crashes or other incidents since 1970—and subtracted points for fatal incidents in the past five years. We gave a slight preference to airlines with the youngest fleets, based on Skytrax ratings.

No 1 Lufthansa

37 points

Named after the medieval Hansa League, Germany's longtime national airline was founded in the 1920s and relaunched after World War II. Lufthansa has since established an enviable safety record, while growing to a fleet of nearly 300 aircraft that serve more than 200 destinations.

Travel + Leisure released the list of world's safest airlines. [Photo/Agencies]

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