The world's safest airline revealed

Qantas has been named the world's safest airline for 2017 in a new list of the top 20.

Safety and product rating website airlineratings.com has compiled the list
from 425 airlines, awarding them up to seven stars for safety.

The site says that Qantas has "a fatality-free record in the jet era – an extraordinary record".

Airlineratings says it took into account a number of factors when selecting of the world's top 20 safest airlines. These include: audits from aviation's governing bodies and lead associations as well as government audits, the airline's crash and serious incident records, profitability and fleet age.

Of the 425 airlines surveyed, 148 have the top seven-star safety ranking but almost 50 have just three stars or less. There are 14 airlines with only one star and these airlines are from Afghanistan, Indonesia, Nepal and Surinam.

According to the Telegraph, the maximum seven-star rating is not given to budget carriers, so there is a separate rating for the no-frills services. British carriers Flybe and Thomas Cook both made it into the top 10 as well as Ireland's Aer Lingus.

According to the report, 2016 was the second safest year on record to take a flight, despite some high-profile accidents.

One study revealed that looking at crashes worldwide of civil aircraft carrying at least 14 passengers, there were 19 fatal airliner accidents involving 325 deaths.

The site adds: "By comparison, 560 people died in 2015, while the year of the lowest number of fatalities, 2013, recorded 29 accidents."

The world's 20 safest airlines (in alphabetical order)

Air New Zealand
Alaska Airlines
All Nippon Airways
British Airways
Cathay Pacific
Delta Air Lines
Etihad Airways
EVA Air
Finnair
Hawaiian Airlines
Japan Airlines
KLM
Lufthansa
Qantas
Scandinavian
Singapore Airlines
Swiss
United Airlines
Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Australia

The 10 safest low-cost airlines (in a alphabetical order)

Aer Lingus
Flybe
HK Express
Jetblue
Jetstar Australia
Jetstar Asia
Thomas Cook
Virgin America
Vueling
Westjet