When it comes to airline safety, it seems that no company can truly offer 100% reliability. But from these high standards to having planes crashes and missing passengers there’s a long way to go.
Some companies only had 1 or 2 accidents and they already became unpopular with many potential travelers. Here are the airlines that don’t enjoy the best reputation at the moment.
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10. Blue Wing
Image: Wikimedia / Nardisoero
If you’re planning to travel to the Caribbean, there are many airlines you can consider. Even boat travel seems safer than choosing Blue Wing. This airline operates from South American destinations. It has seen its share of trouble with licenses revoked on several occasions due to poor safety standards. A few years down the line with a few dead passengers following airplane crashes, it seems the company hasn’t learned from the indication given by safety officials.
9. China Airlines
Image: Wikimedia / Kaichinshih
China Airlines has been involved in a few high profile accidents with dead customers and major plane crashes. Operating from its Taiwan base, the company seems to run into one problem after another. At one time, Czech officials filed a complaint about the company being unresponsive, but there was no pilot in the airplane at the moment of the communication issue as some people say. It was back in 2002 that a China Airlines airplane crashed on its destination to Hong Kong. Multiple other accidents that involve the company haven’t been yet answered.
8. Papua New Guinea Air
Image: Wikimedia / Jialiang Gao
Papua New Guinea Air or PNG has a terrible history of repeated accidents. Mostly responsible for the flights into and out of Papua New Guinea, the company was responsible for multiple crashes and other problems that even multiple rebranding attempts can’t solve.
7. Turkish Airlines
Turkish Airlines exploded as a company over the past years, much like Eithad and Qatar. But unlike those companies, Turkish Airlines is struggling to keep up with its growth. It now has nearly 300 airplanes and this is not even the case for larger companies such as Etihad.
The problem with long haul flights is they need a layover. In the case of Turkish Airlines, this is at Istanbul Airport in Turkey. But the airport now sees almost one thousand departures and arrivals each day which is past its maximum capacity. This level of business is normally seen in award-winning airports such as the Atlanta Airport. Some experts warn Turkish Airlines is headed for disaster.
6. Tara Air
Image: Wikimedia / Solundir
Tara Air is flying in Nepal. With poor infrastructure and old airplanes, the company made the news with multiple accidents over the past years. Sure, flight conditions are far from ideal in Nepal. But this doesn’t mean people have to die to get there.
5. DAALLO Airlines
Image: Flickr / Laurent ERRERA
The Somali airline hasn’t seen a major crash yet, but it seems this is imminent as it has a poor history of security checks at the airport. There have been cases of passengers smuggling bombs on the planes of this company. It’s even a company that isn’t allowed into certain countries based on these shockingly poor safety checks.
4. North Korea Airlines
Image: Flickr / Kok Leng Yeo
There hasn’t been a major upgrade of North Korean airplanes since their first started to fly in the communist country. Most of its planes are in very bad condition. They are even banned from flying into certain countries. But even if they would be accepted, most experts agree they couldn’t venture off too far out of the country given their Soviet-era technology.
3. Lion Air
Image: Lion Air
Lion Air has been whitelisted just a while back after being banned from flying over the EU. But the company is now accepted in many previous locations it was kept away from since it decided to follow the rules everybody follows when talking about safety.
But not everybody agrees the company has changed physically rather than on paper. Some passengers report Lion’s pilots to come to work under the influence of alcohol or hallucinogenic drugs. A few internal reports also showed this to be the case which is why so many don’t believe in the positive changes this company has truly changed.
2. Ariana Afghan Air
Image: Facebook / Ariana Afghan Air
It seems that nothing can truly work properly in Afghanistan after the country was heavily bombed by the US. Even its national airline is now struggling to survive. It operates around 10 international destinations and it has scrapped most of its old planes.
However, there have been numerous issues with the company in the past. More than 100 people died because of this company before the US war. But today, Afghan Air is struggling to offer a new fleet with the modern safety standard, better engines, and better safety checks. International organizations are working closely with the country to ensure nothing goes wrong.
1. Malaysia Airlines
Only divinity knows why Malaysia Airlines had such a series of bad events in the history of aviation. More than 200 people vanished when their Flight M370 crashed in water between Kuala Lumpur and China.
But it was another shocking event that made the front newspaper pages that the company was also involved in. Flight MH17 was heading to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam when it disappeared off the radar killing 295 people on board.
This shocking event was also never fully understood and accounted for. The company made the fatal mistake of flying over the area of conflict between Ukraine and Russia. This open conflict was the result of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine where local forces had to respond in some way. It is believed Russian rebels shot down the MH17 airplane.
The conflict in Ukraine shows there’s no logic behind any war. Furthermore, there were no harsh sanctions given to Russia over this catastrophe. But some passengers claim that Malaysia Airlines is to blame as well. Regardless of what type of illegality is happening on the ground in that area, the airplane should have diverted on a new route to Kuala Lumpur and away from a conflict area that seems to last for years.
