As the New Year gets underway, many travelers are undoubtedly booking flights. A new report from AirlineRatings.com details the safest airlines in the world as 2020 travel planning starts.

AirlineRatings.com, launched in 2013, rates the safety and in-flight products of more than 400 airlines. The website asserts it has become an industry standard for product and safety ratings. In early December, we published its previous report regarding 2020’s best airlines.

The safety report details the 20 safest major airlines in the world, along with 10 of the safest budget airlines. The top 20 safest major airlines include (in order from No. 1) Qantas, Air New Zealand, EVA Air, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Alaska Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Virgin Australia.

Part of Qantas’ crowning achievements is its 99-year history and firm reputation as the industry’s most experienced airline, confirmed in a 2008 British Advertising Standards Association ruling. One of Qantas’ innovations includes its hand in developing the Future Air Navigation System, which records flight data and crew performance, enables automatic landing and assists with precision approaches to mountains. Qantas also uses real-time engine monitoring to detect problems before they become real issues.

As for budget airlines, Air Arabia, HK Express and IndiGo are all among the top 10.

“All airlines have incidents every day and many are aircraft manufacture issues, not airline operational problems,” said Geoffrey Thomas, editor in chief, AirlineRatings.com. “It is the way the flight crew handles incidents that determines a good airline from an unsafe one. So just lumping all incidents together is very misleading.”

To come up with the list, the website looked at a range of factors including audits from government aviation bodies, government audits, crash and serious incident records, fleet age, safety initiatives and profitability.

Do you fly the safest airlines regularly? What steps do you think airlines could incorporate to make flying safer on the whole? Tell us. Email us at letters@globaltravelerusa.com. Please include your full name and location.