The national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines and the budget carrier Jetstar Pacific were awarded the highest seven-star safety ranking from the world’s safety and product rating agency AirlineRatings.com, Vietnam Airlines Corporation said on October 15.

The safety rating for each airline is conducted based on standards recognised by countries worldwide like safety management system with eight audit parameters of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the certification of the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), among others.

The two Vietnamese airlines, together with Singapore Airlines, British Airways, American Airlines and Emirates, also satisfied the  AirlineRatings’ criteria on fatality free record for the past ten years.

Congratulating Vietnam Airlines on this achievement, Geoffrey Thomas, Editor-in-chief at the AirlineRatings, said “For a long time, Vietnam Airlines has been an important part of the economy of Vietnam. The airline has a very modern fleet of Airbus and Boeing aircraft and operationally is now up there with the very best”.

Last year, Vietnam Airlines transported nearly 22 million passengers on 140,000 safe flights.

Regarding Jetstar Pacific, the carrier fulfilled 800 criteria to receive the IOSA certificate in September 2018. Currently, the airline is operating the safety management system (SMS) meeting the standards of the ICAO and the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

On AirlineRatings’ evaluation on flight entertainment, meals and other comforts, Vietnam Airlines also achieved high rating of 6.5 out of seven stars. Meanwhile, in low-cost carrier product rating, Jetstar Pacific was rated three out of five stars, the same level as Jeju Air (the Republic of Korea), Air Asia (Indonesia) and Cebu Pacific (the Philippines).

Jetstar Pacific is the first low-cost carrier of Vietnam. Vietnam Airlines and Qantas Airlines are its main shareholders.-VNA