Which European airlines rank highest in new 10-year safety index?

Aegean Airlines, Ryanair and Austrian Airlines have been ranked in the top three positions of a new 10-year safety index of 20 major European airlines.

Released by AirAdvisor, the 2026 European Airline Safety Index assessed the 10 largest eligible low-cost and 10 largest eligible mainline carriers operating in Europe, based on 2025 flight volumes reported by EUROCONTROL.

Each airline was scored out of 100 across six weighted categories:

40%: safety record, based on accidents published in the IATA Safety Report between 2016 and 2025 inclusive
20%: certification and audit, including audit history and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) data on the effectiveness of national aviation oversight
15%: operational safety systems
10%: fleet age and technical profile
10%: pilot training
5%: financial stability

Scores for operational safety, fleet, training and financial stability were based on publicly available regulatory and company information, AirAdvisor said, adding that the index is “comparative and should not be read as a measure of whether any individual airline is safe or unsafe”.

In the final rankings, Greek flag carrier Aegean scored 89/100 with no qualifying accidents in the 10-year period, ahead of Ryanair (86/100) and Austrian Airlines (85.5/100).

Aegean achieved a perfect 40/40 for its safety record and also scored highly on operational safety (13/15), fleet (9/10) and financial stability (5/5).

A perfect safety record alone “was not enough to reach the top”, said AirAdvisor. “British Airways, SAS and Eurowings also scored 40/40 in that category but finished outside the top five, because the index weighs six factors together.”

Low-cost carriers rank high

Three of the top five airlines in the 10-year safety index were low-cost carriers: Ryanair (second), Norwegian (fourth) and SunExpress (fifth). Across the full study, low-cost airlines averaged a score of 79.2/100, compared with 82.8/100 for mainline carriers – a gap of 3.6 points.

“Many travellers assume that a cheaper ticket means accepting more safety risk, but the data doesn’t support this,” Anton Radchenko, CEO of AirAdvisor, said to Euronews Travel.

“Low-cost and mainline airlines have very similar accident records, and their safety management systems scored the same on average. In other words, the price of a ticket tells you very little about how safe an airline is.”

Low-cost carriers outranked mainline airlines on their fleet age and technical profile, with the former scoring 7.8/10, while the latter scored 7.1/10. Low-cost carriers tend to have a younger fleet, with Wizz Air and Pegasus scoring 10/10 in this category.

“A young fleet can bring technological and efficiency advantages, but aircraft age should never be treated as a safety rating on its own,” Radchenko said in the report. “An older aircraft that is properly maintained can continue operating safely for decades.”