Airline safety at highest levels in flying history

Good news for frequent flyers – safety in the skies has never been better.

Air safety is at its best ever levels according to IATA. Image by fsse8info / CC BY-SA 2.0

The International Air Transport Associated (IATA) reported this week that airline safety last year was at the best level in the history of flying. The accident rate last year dropped to a .23 rate, representing a huge improvement over the figures from the previous 12 months’ .41 rate, and was well ahead of the previous five-year average (2009-2013) rate of .58. The 2014 rate equates to one accident for every 4.4 million flights compared to one accident every 2.4 million flights for the previous year.

Travel Pulse reports the substantial year-on-year year improvement, highlighting IATA’s data showing that more than 3.3 billion people flew safely on 38 million flights.

However, airplane accident fatalities increased last year, rising from an average of 517 fatalities from 2009-2013 to 641 last year. This was due to several tragedies involving commercial airlines, causing the higher number of fatalities. Included in these statistics were the losses of flights MH370 and MH17.