Why Does Qantas Have Such A Good Safety Record?

Australian flag carrier Qantas is known for having one of the airline industry’s safety records. Indeed, the 1988 film Rain Man refers to this, with the main character claiming that the airline has “never crashed.” While this is not quite true, the airline has experienced a relatively incident-free first 100 years. Let’s take a look at how it has managed this.

Difficult early years

As The Guardian observes, while Qantas‘s safety record is impressive, its early years were not as perfect as Rain Man might have one believe. For example, between July and December 1951, the airline sadly experienced three fatal accidents within just five months. These were the last fatal accidents involving Qantas, and a handful more had preceded them.

As The Guardian points out, several of the incidents involving Qantas aircraft that resulted in fatalities occurred during the Second World War. With some of these aircraft being shot down by enemy forces while flying for the Australian Air Force, it would perhaps be unfair to categorize these in the same way as peacetime accidents.

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Nonetheless, Qantas did suffer a further four fatal crashes involving de Havilland aircraft before the Second World War. These took place between March 1927 and November 1934. Due to the size of the aircraft involved, none of these incidents resulted in more than four deaths.

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An impressive jetliner safety record

The dawn of the ‘Jet Age‘ marked several significant turning points for the aviation industry. The advent of jet-powered aircraft allowed airlines to fly faster and further than ever before. It was also a time of social change, with air travel becoming increasingly affordable for the traveling public. However, it also marked a turning point for Qantas’s safety record.

Although, as we have established, the airline suffered a handful of fatal accidents in its early years, none have occurred since jet-powered airliners revolutionized the industry. Indeed, the Australian flag carrier has neither suffered a fatal accident nor a hull loss involving one of its jetliners. This is an impressive statistic, for which there are several contributing factors.

Reasons for the admirable record

One has to consider the type of flights Qantas deploys its jetliners on. Australia is located in one of the more extreme corners of the world geographically. As such, the airline has specialized in operating longer-haul flights (while also retaining a core domestic and regional network).

This means that its aircraft generally experience fewer takeoffs and landings over the course of their day than, for example, a Ryanair Boeing 737 operating several daily European rotations. The majority of accidents occur during takeoff and landing, so, naturally, experiencing this process fewer times reduces the chance of accidents.

Qantas has also generally always had a relatively small fleet compared, for example, to US legacy airlines and European flag carriers. According to Planespotters.net, it currently features 133 aircraft. Meanwhile, American Airlines boasts 885 planes, and British Airways operates a 255-jet fleet. This is another factor that reduces the number of flights that Qantas operates, and, with this in mind, the chance of accidents occurring also falls.

On the whole, these two rather obvious factors are not necessarily intentional, safety-driven decisions. Rather, they reflect the scale and type of services that Qantas operates from its Australian bases. Nonetheless, in an industry that is as safety-driven as commercial aviation, such an impressive record, regardless of the reasons for it, is only a good thing.

What do you make of Qantas’s impressive safety record? Have you ever flown with the Australian flag carrier? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments!

Source: https://simpleflying.com/qantas-safety-record/