But they’re in that annoying (to me) format where you have to click for a new page to see the next one, so I’ll list them here, with No 1 being the most dangerous:
Cubana Airlines
China Airlines
Iran Air
Philippine Airlines
Kenya Airways
Egyptair
Pakistan International Airlines
Avianca
Thai Airways
Garuda
We’ve flown three of these, especially Thai Airways, which I can’t say I think of as all that dangerous. But their customer service has really gone downhill in recent years, and they’re expensive as all get out. I know 20 years ago they were considered one of the better airlines, but I don’t think anyone thinks of them that way anymore.
China Airlines is the national airline of Taiwan, and again we’ve flown them a lot. We actually like them. The Bangkok-Honolulu route is very handy for us. The only problems we’ve ever had with them personally is when we checked in once to return from Honolulu early one morning and then shortly later were told the plane could not fly and that they were bringing in a replacement from Taipei, meaning we had to wait all day in the airport. I could have gone back into town, but the wife had already checked out through Immigration, so I gamely opted to stay with her. Stuck there all friggin’ day.
And another time when we flew China from Bangkok to Los Angeles, we were told the day before we left Bangkok that the Taipei-LA leg had been canceled for that day. However, the airline put us all up in the airport hotel to fly us out the next morning, which we thought was okay. We were unofficially in Taiwan and so were told repeatedly NOT to go into the city, but we saw at least one guy head out in a taxi after he got settled into his room. Us, we just hung out there at the hotel.
We’ve flown Garuda, the national airline of Indonesia, between the islands of Bali and Java. They were uneventful flights, but American friends who used to live in Indonesia told me they personally witnessed the airline’s crews change the good tires used on their incming international flights, which entail higher standards, to sets that were rather bald for continuing on domestically.
I’ve flown the same three as you, and I’m stunned Thai Airways is on the list. Damn.
Where the hell is Air India? I never once boarded an Air India flight where the baggage xray was actually worked, but they just passed the bags through it anyway.
And, how the hell did Garuda make this list and not Merpati, which actually let’s the passengers vote on the flight path. As in, “Ocean? Coastline?”.
And I don’t see any carriers from South America or Africa. Seriously, how is that possible?
I’m seriously surprised Biman Airlines, the national carrier of Bangladesh, is not on the list, let alone not No 1. We’ve never flown it and never will, based on the legion of horror stories, many of which make it into the local Letters to the Editor sections.
One time, Biman offered this really fantastic fare to Singapore, really cheap, and a group of people I knew took advantage of it. The sole American in the group told me afterward the flight was six hours late, and when he started asking airport staff, they told him Biman never ran on schedule. He said the plane was dirty, and midway to Singapore it plunged for no apparent reason, or explanation afterward. Among the group were a few Thais for whom this was their first time flying ever, and they honestly thought they were about to die.
As for China Airlines, I recall they had a spate of crashes about 10 years ago, and then it came out in the news that the airline had been recruiting jet-fighter pilots away from the Taiwanese air force but giving them little extra training. So what you started getting as pilots were a bunch of Top Gun fighter jocks still in that mindset.
Korean Air also has similar problems. What makes it worse is that, relatively speaking, people in many East Asian cultures are more reluctant to challenge their superior compared to their Western counterparts. This cultivates an environment in the flight deck where the captain is Og Almighty, which is actually not conductive to safety. This can be mitigated by improved training in Cockpit Resource Management, which tries to promote a more healthy, team-work environment, but it is not always easy.
That reminds me that the crown prince of Thailand is a trained fighter pilot who routinely flies routes on Thai Airways, including a recent charter flight to Mecca for Thai Muslims.
Looking at it closely, they seem to be computing the ratings on some sort of combination of completed flights, fatal accidents and deaths. For example, #1 Cubana Airlines has “Completed flights: 320,000 – Fatal accidents: 8 – Deaths: 404,” while #10 Garuda has “Completed flights: 2 million – Fatal accidents: 4 – Deaths: 431.”
I’ve been on Philippine Airlines. It is indeed a little less than professional, to say the least.
I’m sure there are tiny airlines out there that are indeed more dangerous (I once got on a plane that claimed to be “Lucky Air” shiver) but they just haven’t put enough flights up to have their number called, so to speak.
Sorry Sam, that should have read “of the smaller carrier’s” from South America or Africa, my bad.
Avianca is aces compared to carriers like AeroPeru. I flew them out of Lima, and, I kid you not, they were weighing the passengers, and the passenger luggage was all in the cabin. (I later learned it was likely they’d overloaded the cargo bin with lucrative air freight, and were working the weight margins, yikes!)
Apparently Cubana used to buy the planes that Aeroflot no longer wanted, which might explain something.
I flew Cubana a few times about 8 years ago. The transatlantic flight from London still had a smoking section. The short internal flight, well, where to start? There was a spout of what looked like water but could have been fuel for all I know pouring out of a hole at the back. The cabin was full of fog up to neck height when you were seated, because the aircon was broke - it stayed like that the whole flight. The seats were all broken and either tipped far forward or right back (I sat in a forward leaning one behind a backward leaning one, so had my head leaning against the seat in front the whole way). On the plus side, they gave out free shots of rum throughout the flight.
I don’t doubt that Garuda probably aren’t the safest airline to fly with but this specific example sounds highly unlikely, if only because changing tyres is a big job that requires an aircraft to be in the hangar up on jacks and the public is unlikely to see this happen.
Yes this is often cited as being a problem with Asian airlines. I think it downplays slightly the fact that people from western cultures are also at risk of this but maybe to a lessor extent, i.e., no one is perfect. The worst first officer you can have is the one who sits back saying not a word for fear of offending someone while you inadvertently fly everyone into a mountain. There’s an FO I’ve flown with a few times who is a great guy, good personality, easy to get on with, but I noticed after a while that he seemed to look on with little comprehension when I was working out enroute fuel requirements, kind of like he’s thinking “ah the captain’s doing captain stuff now, hmm what shall I have for dinner tonight”. I asked him a couple of questions about fuel requirements and it turns out he has absolutely no idea. I have no doubt that if I told him we’re going to carry half the minimum reserves today because it’s sunny and I’m feeling good about stuff, he would’ve nodded and smiled politely. This is not good, I want someone next to me who thinks about what I’m doing and tells me if they think I’m being an idiot.
I don’t mean to take away from your point because it is a good one, there is a cultural problem there that is not present in such a way in western cultures, but it is easy to sit back with a smug smile and think “ah, we are not like that, we wouldn’t let our captain fly us into a hill”. As a culture that may be correct, but on an individual basis we need to be very careful that we don’t fall into the same traps.
Thisis the list of airlines currently banned from operating within the European Community based on inspections and operational issues that have arisen over time.
Canada, the USA, and, well, pretty much most countries have such lists, but offhand I can’t seem to Google them. Those are air carriers you probably want to avoid, especially if they show up on more than one list!
I’ve flown Garuda and China from that list, mostly on long flights across oceans, and had wonderful experiences. I think long haul flights are all generally the same.
My best Merpati memory is from an island-hopper flight between (I think) Ambon and Tanimbar. I watched my bag being loaded on the plane through the airport windows… then on arrival, they unloaded, and it wasn’t there! Apparently they’d taken it off again, too heavy. It arrived on the next flight - a week later!
Fun fact - “Merpati” means pigeon in Bahasa Indonesia. Not the most stately of emblems.
Basically, the list is completely pointless. As Patrick Smith of Ask the Pilot has pointed out on more than one occasion, there really is no such thing as a dangerous airline, at least not when you’re talking about proper commercial carriers like the ones on the list.
Also, some of the airlines whose names often come up in these discussions suffer from old and no-longer-deserved reputations. For example:
And:
Smith notes that African airlines have a bad reputation, but cautions:
Ah, I see. I can only assume it really does have something to do with the configuration of numbers of flights / fatal crashes / deaths.
It’s been a few years. I suppose she could have just said that they do that instead of seeing it, but my memory, foggy as it is these days, clearly has her saying that.
